Looking Back- Brief LA weekend trip

I've been so over-loaded, I never reported on our brief road-trip to CA for my niece's baptism on Saturday, January 7.

We knew we would be spending most of our time in the car, so we decided to rent a mini-van for the trip- excellent decision.  Iris got the back bench to herself and slept most of the drive.  We left Friday, about an hour after Iris got home from school and drove straight to the In-N-Out in St. George for dinner.  (where we also stopped to buy a towel at BBandB since The Frog thought he should dump an entire water bottle on his own lap...)  The kids slept until we got to Vegas and we all just crashed that night.

The next day, we dressed for the baptism, and got on the road towards LA.  We pretty much drove straight until lunch-time, where we stopped at a Chick-Fil-A in Irvine, CA which was a total SCORE because they had a much needed kids play area!  After thoroughly playing there, we headed over to the Orange County Great Park, where we were hoping to get to ride in this:

 A giant helium balloon! (does this make anyone else immediately think of "Up!"?)

 Sadly, we didn't realize you were supposed to show up early in the morning and reserve a time slot and they were full for the rest of the day, so we instead enjoyed the free merry-go-round (more than once).

Peach had fun just walking around, looking at whatever. (and there were cups and water available, which she kept wanting to fill and dump out)

 There was also this fake rock structure that a bunch of kids were climbing, including The Frog.

 I think this next one is so funny because it looks like he's posing all manly, but it was really mid-motion:

 They had really funny bike-racks :)

Funny, once we got to the baptism, not ONE picture was taken with the cousins.  LAME.  But the food and company were fantastic and it was fun to see the cousins, if only for a few hours.  Then we headed back to Vegas to stay in our same hotel room from the night before- this time driving down the strip so Iris and the kids could see it in all it's night-time glory. (while I was praying for them not to notice the scandalous bilboards and advertisements...)

Sunday we just woke up with the kids and headed home, though not without letting our kids jump on the hotel beds, of course...

We saw a D on the mountain (I forget where now... near LA area somewhere) and The Frog mentioned our hike up to the Y last August.  (I can't believe he remembers that!!)  He then said we should hike up to a J somewhere.  (Since his name starts with J)  I laughingly said, "good idea" while thinking, "oh sillly child, there is no J", but then on our way home, and not too far either, we noticed a J on a mountain!  I tried to hurry and get a shot of it before we passed... can you see it?

It was fun, if brief, but hopefully next time we'll get more time with the cousins.  We're so proud of "Beebs" for deciding to get baptized and wanted to make sure to let her know it :)