Spring Break in Califonia

I know these next few entries are all old news-but better late than never. :) Get ready for a crazy amount of pictures. I tried only pick a few but that is impossible when we had so much fun! For part of Spring Break we went to southern Cali to visit family. Dave's grandparents live there in a little town called Ojai in a beautiful picturesque valley with lots of orchards. Ojai has a lot of memories for Dave and now it has become a place our kids love to go! Grandad and Grandma Owens have been so gracious to let us come and visit and invade their home. We love it!

Dave's sister Amy and her husband JR live in the next town over. His dad and sister Melanie and her kids came down from northern CA and his brother Stephen flew in from school at BYU Idaho to join us too!! We were so excited to get to spent time with family!

Grandad and Grandma Owens

They have the perfect grandparent backyard-lots of room to run and a very cool tree house.

Dave's family is a hunting family, hence the reason there is a stuffed grizzly in their living room. :) The kids think it is so cool and love to sleep out by the bear when we come to visit.

Stephen grew antlers while we were there

Melanie is a FABULOUS photographer and was nice enough to take our family pictures for us. She did and amazing job! We were excited to have them taken on the beach(we would have loved them on the beach in Hawaii but that will have to come another time). Thank you so much Melanie!! And thanks to the rest of the family who sat around waiting for us and making our kids smile!

One of the main reasons for this trip was for Dave and Stephen to go surfing. We also wanted Kawika to be able to try it out. So Grandpa surprised Kawika with an early birthday present-his very own surfboard! He was very excited!

We went fishing on Ventura pier.

Grandpa, Jacob, Lydia, and Kalani

Horse back riding with Amy

We went to Aunt Patti's farm and rode Amy's horses. The kids loved it and Amy was so nice to take each kid riding till their heart was content. Thanks Amy we had a great time!

Melanie with her daughters Lydia and Elise.

The girls and Jacob

A Day at the Beach

We got to spend a day at the beach while Dave and Stephen went surfing. Amy and Kaili had fun building a mama and baby sea turtle.

The kids loved playing in the surf. I still can't figure out how they weren't frozen popsicles-that water is soooo cold. I steered clear of the cold water.

We found 3 cute little mermaids on sunning themselves on the beach.

Kawika tried to catch a couple of waves and got up on his knees!! Wooohooo! He was freezing after this wave and promptly got out. He had fun but we'll have to try again in warmer water.

Dave and Stephen had a great time surfing. Dave loved being back out in the ocean-that is something we definitely miss being land locked in the desert.