Mission Beach...

We spent Monday just hanging around our beach house and playing at Mission Beach! We loaded right up into our suits, grabbed boogie boards, a picnic lunch, beach chairs and blankets and set up camp.

Lainey and I headed right for the waves with our boogie boards!

We enjoyed ourselves just a little too much and at one point a lifeguard had to grab as I was suddenly over my head in the water! It was fine and happened relatively early in the day. I kept boogie boarding anyway!

As a quick side note, Aunt Rachel's toe didn't end up being broken! Mommy took some time to really look at it and feel it and suggested that she just had a huge blood blister under her toe nail that was causing severe pressure thus severe pain. Saturday night, Aunt Rachel decided to just kind of poke at her swollen toe with a sharp knife and it kind of exploded! She still had a painful toe, but she could walk and it made the trip so much better!! Back to our beach...

The three little girls thrilled themselves by jumping over waves and looking for sea shells.

Iva didn't LOVE the beach. Sand in her eyes, scary sea gulls, and scary waves. Luckily she took a pretty long nap!

Dad and Uncle Troy buried all of us girls at one point, at our request of course!

Some lady walking on the beach thought it was hilarious that my pregnant Mom had buried us all and told her "Now that's the way to make them behave at the beach!"

The Lewis Ladies brought henna with them. Mary has gotten really good at it and took the time to do some henna for us all.

We rounded out the night by getting a giant family shot. It was kind of hilarious corralling 22 people into looking good together, but I think we got a good shot. Those pictures are one Uncle Troy's big boy camera and we will have to upload those later!

I'll just quickly skip to Wednesday for a brief moment because once again we stayed at the house and played on the beach! Iva once again did not LOVE it. She preferred to be wrapped in a towel and cry. Luckily, she sacked out for a nap again! Mom did play in the water but there is very little photographic evidence that she did. The Preslar family had some unfortunate sunburns from Monday and so even after a day at Legoland (more on that in the next post) Romney decided it best to stay in the dark. 

Buried alive..again!

Iva and Park seemed to enjoy each other's company. They liked to make each other laugh.

At one point, everyone was a little bit sunned out and they decided to hit up the movies. Half the group went to Inside Out and the other half saw Jurassic World. Funny enough, Daddy took a picture of Laine and I in front of the minions! Dad had taken Cara and I to see Inside Out on opening day, so I chose to see Jurassic World and Cara chose to hang out at the house with the two little kids and Mom and Whit. 

That night, at Rachel's suggestion, we went on quite the walk to find "The Baked Bear". An ice cream shop that let you create your own ice cream sandwich. It had been recommended to them by someone on the Preslar side. It was well worth the surprisingly long walk. So scrumptious!

The Romneys Do San Diego!!

Way back in October, we were supposed to go to Cabo San Lucas with our whole Romney family but a nasty hurricane at the end of September quickly squashed that trip. Cabo was hit hard. We came up with plan B, but it had to wait clear until the Seattle Romneys got out of school in late June! We have honestly been looking forward to this big trip with family for over a year.

Plan B included a full week in San Diego at a beach house with possible outings to several amusement parks and LOTS of beach time. Mom and Aunt Rachel spent a long time finding us a great house ended up being two units in a quad plex type situation. It was lovely. The house was situated on Mission Bay which made it nice and quiet. The house came with beach chairs, beach toys, boogie boards, volleyballs and lots of tile to make sandy.

So last Saturday, after a few days of packing and prepping, our little crew loaded into our van to meet up with the rest of the family who would be flying into San Diego. Actually, Mom first went on a ten mile run before we were allowed to climb into the van.  She and Aunt Becca have signed up for a half marathon and are stuck getting in training! They were tired.

Seven long hours, a Del Taco visit, and some unbearable traffic later, we were finally at our beach house! We thought we would be arriving at the same time as the Preslars, but unfortunately they had even LARGER delays getting their rental vehicles. Quick funny story, somewhere during one of our traffic delays, Mom got a text on her phone from what she thought was Rachel. It asked whose phone this was. Mom was really confused until she realized that Rachel must have left her phone in a bathroom in the airport! It was a frantic few moments of trying to call Troy or Apa to alert them of the situation which they apparently knew about. The story ended well with the nice gentleman finding Troy but Mom really hoped it wasn't an omen of the weekend!

Back to our beach house, Mom got us all settled and unpacked in our space and then we spent some time exploring the Bay right behind the house. Iva loved the sand.

We loved all the sea shells.

As you can see, Iva eventually just had to be stripped!

It took us a bit to get the Preslars into the house and we finally ate dinner probably somewhere around 8 pm. Aunt Rachel thought she had broken her toe right before they left and she was in quite a bit of pain and it made things a bit harder because she had to kind of communicate what she needed to all of us! We weren't expecting Margaret and her girls or the Seattle Romneys until the next day so we all settled in and had a good sleep.

Father's Day brought a lovely Sunday to us. Iva enjoyed Mom and Dad's bed...

The obligatory Father's Day photo with the head of our Romney family!

We decided to try and make Sunday a little special and took the time to visit the Mormon Battalion museum in Old Town San Diego. Wow! It was so neat. It's an awesome tour that includes themed rooms and panning for gold at the end. Mom and Dad had no idea how truly influential that little Battalion had been!

Iva was in love with Chase and would sit on his lap repeatedly.

Apa treated us to a lovely Father's Day buffet and this delicious Mexican restaurant that was just a short walk away. We ate so much!  Burritos, waffles, churros, cookies, flan, sausage, salads, rolls, chimichangas, cinnamon tortilla chips. YUM! We also got balloon hats!

We also took the time to drive just a few minutes up the freeway and see the San Diego Temple. We were a little bummed that they don't have a visitor's center, but we still enjoyed the beauty of the outside!

We ended the day waiting for the Seattle Romneys by playing in the bay once again. This time swim suits were involved and we got PLENTY sandy. It was so exciting to think we still had six more sleeps in this place!

Throwback from Daddy's phone!

We just got back from a huge vacation to San Diego and when Mom asked Dad for the photos from HIS phone she discovered a few photos that never made it on to the blog from May and the beginning of June!

After Dad took me on my campout, Cara really wanted to go on one as well. So on Memorial Day weekend, he packed her up and they went looking for a quick overnight camp site. Everywhere was packed and it was kind of a rainy weekend but they had fun! They hiked to the kilns below Pine Valley Mountain and had dinner.

And here are a couple from our quick romp up to SLC:

And of course this funny random one of Iva!

Fun Family Photos

Our Uncle Eric is getting ready to serve a mission for our church so my Grandma wanted to make sure that we got some good family photos before he left. Allie was even there! It was crazy hot, but Mom managed to get some cute photos of us on her own phone. We can't wait to see the big ones.

Our baby cousin is HERE!

Aunt Angie had her baby last week on probably the one day that worked for everyone! Last Thursday morning, Uncle CJ dropped off Lexi to us and then we hung out at the gym while Angie brought baby Allie Kathleen Jensen into the world. She was 8 lb and kind of made a rough but FAST entrance. We adore her. Like so much. Iva especially. She fights to hold the baby. 

I secretly think Lexi liked her new baby sister because it meant she got to sleepover at our house! We got to break in all three bunk beds. It was fun.

Allie has so much hair!

Seriously...summer is our season

We love summer!! We have spent plenty of time at city pool swimming our guts out...

We made it out on to the boat with Grandpa. Iva took a little while to warm up to it!

I LOVED it. I begged to go kneeboarding!

We played on the beach plenty though. This particular day a storm blew in right as we left.

Grandpa took me out climbing. I was a bit nervous on the climbs at Veyo, but I'm getting better.

We even caught a fire truck parade downtown! We got sprayed with water guns, got loaded up with candy, and had our eardrums blasted by the sirens.

Mommy and I ran in a 5k the next morning for the University of Utah Burn Center. It was awesome. We got sprayed by fire hoses every 1000 feet or so.

The best part was the foam party finish!

It was an awesome way to start a Saturday and I beat my own 5k record by 3 minutes! (At our best guess!)