Last Day of Vacation:

Finally I am posting our last day of Vacation....it was a fun one! Well, except for the driving that is :) That morning we woke up and went down to the nice pool at the hotel and then *after lots of begging from the kids* went to Ihop for breakfast. Cinnamon Roll flavored Frech Toast...YUUUUMMMM! After breakfast we headed to Santa Monica Pier. Little did we know that there is NO WHERE to park on a Saturday. So after driving around for 1/2 hour we ended up paying $8 to park, it wasn't near the pier, but the Beach is all we cared about anyways. To say we love the Ocean is an understatement. I could be there every day and never be more happy :)

I've had a lot of people ask me how I get my nice beach pictures when it is so bright and sunny outside. The trick is over exposing. If you meter for the sky or usually what your meter on your camera says is correct you will get a nice sky but your subject will be really dark and shadowed. Bump up your exposure a couple stops and your subject will be the right brightness and your sky and background will be blown a little. It is better to have the sky blown and have the exposure correct on your subject. If I had my nice big flash with me, I would have metered off the the sky and then let the flash "fill" in my subject. But, it's too hard chasing kids around with a flash too :) And I like this look just fine. Hope that helps a little and makes sense.

Look how happy she is! She is our little mermaid because she LOVES water.

Mckay was brave for 30 seconds and went in the water this once.

I couldn't ever get pictures of Pip looking at me because she was so amazed by the sand and water.

Of course they had to build a mini pool to play in.

The kids asked me why people were laying out with towels and I told them they were working on their tans. I had to explain that people wanted their bodies to be a toasty brown color. And so they decided they had to work on their tans too.

I had just got done burying Ky and Pip wanted to get buried too, but she didnt lay there long enough to get completely buried like Kylin did. I think I was the whitest person on that beach. Hence, why I was covered up :) Or maybe it is the fact that I don't own any shorts because I live in FREEZING UTAH and don't need them!

Kinda random, but there were ladybugs everywhere and so Pip picked one up and was fascinated while it crawled all over her. so cute :)

We stayed for a long time playing in the water, making sand castles, and burying the kiddos. And long enough to get my pasty already burnt skin more burnt! Then we headed home.

We stopped at the yummy " Mad Greek" restaurant in Baker California, where some stupid old guy told me I was not "fit to be a mother" because I let the kids out of their chairs to stretch out a little and they were laughing too loudly. They weren't screaming or being awful at all, and it isn't some fancy restaurant or something. I was mad and am not one to sit back and be insulted. So there were words people :) haha. Anways, we decided to drive all the way through the night so that the kids wouldnt have to be bored and ornery the next day in the car and got home at 3am.

It was a REALLY fun trip, it was a little tuff with the Pip, but I am so thankful for all the wonderful memories we made together as a family :)