So The Journey Begins--Spring Break, 2011

We woke up on Sunday morning--our day of travel--to fog. Lot's of fog. We headed to the airport and about 5 minutes before we got there found out that our flight had been cancelled-due to fog. BJ and I felt the panick rising. He went in while I waited in the car to see what we could do. We were put on another flight taking us to Chicago instead of Colorado. The layovers would cut it closer to our departure date in L.A. but they felt like we'd be fine. When we arrived in Chicago we looked up on the screen to find that our flight was delayed by 2 hours. In order to make the 11pm flight out of L.A. to New Zealand we had to get there at least 2 hours early. Well, we didn't arrive in L.A. until after midnight. So, we missed our flight and in missing it we lost a full day in New Zealand because the next flight didn't leave until the following evening. We found a motel, crashed after a long day of travel and woke up in California. What to do all day?????

We decided to make the most of it. We rented a car and took off to spend the day at Santa Monica Pier. It was a bit chilly but beautiful.

We had lunch at Bubba Gump's on the patio basking in the sun. I looked over at a young couple eating near us. The young man was looking at our kids. I thought "I know, I know--they are stinking cute, aren't they?" He looked over at his wife and said "4 kids are wayyyyy to many!" Huh, what? Then I thought, "Oh ya, we're in California, the land of the worldly" so I didn't take offense.

We rode the Ferris Wheel. We got such a great view of the coast line up at the tippy top.

The kids played a few games.

Cardon was very proud of his winning turtle. He's got a good arm!

We hit the Merry-Go-Round and let the kids pick out a little treat.

We spent the last of the day walking on the beach. It was a great day. We headed back at dinner time and got ourselves ready to board the plane---New Zealand here we come!!!!!!