California Christmas with the Dunlaps! (Days 1 & 2)

This year, we decided to meet up with Mama and Papa Dunlap in California to celebrate Christmas at Disneyland! It was a fun, exhausting, memorable trip that I'll certainly need 10 years or so to recover from before we do it again. Ha ha! Here are some of the highlights of our trip (this may take a couple posts!):

We rented a minivan (what fun!) and drove the first leg of our trip on Tuesday, December 23. The boys were wonderful in the car! They played, read books, snacked, and watched movies. We listened to Disney music and Seb listened to his book on CD (Redwall). We stayed at a dinky little motel in Victorville, California. The boys were SO excited when we got to the motel -- they ran around like wild men and jumped on the beds before passing out!

The next morning, we located the nearest Original Pancake House and gorged ourselves on their AMAZING breakfast! If you ever get the chance to go, the 49er Flapjacks are out of this world! We drove the rest of the way to Orange County and walked around at a little park while we awaited the arrival of the Dunlap's plane. It was Christmas Eve, but it felt like the middle of summer! The grass was plush and green, the flowers were stunning, and the sky was blue!

After we picked up the Dunlaps, we checked into the Embassy Suites (thank you, Mama and Papa D!!!) then spent the evening at Laguna Beach -- what a charming little beach town! The streets were lit up with Christmas lights and there were fun shops galore! Beau and Hudson were amazed by all of the sand and started digging immediately when their feet hit the beach. We had to lure them to the tide, so they could experience the ocean, too! Hudson and his daddy had a blast! They walked right into the water and spent the evening "running" over the waves. I took my eyes off of poor Beau for a few seconds and a wave knocked him over, covering him from head to toe with cold, salty water and filling his hair, mouth, and ears with sand! Poor thing! He was a great sport, though, and didn't let it deter him. He got right back in there and wanted to be in the water with Hudson and Daddy.

After getting cleaned up, we grabbed a bite to eat at a little Italian restaurant called Carolina's. We almost ate at Red Lobster, but Seb couldn't stand the "fish stink." Ha ha! It took so long to get service that both boys passed out before dinner arrived. Santa was on his way, so after eating we headed home and hit the hay.

Beau's first visit to the ocean

So excited to be together!

Married for over 8 years now!

My sweetheart

What a magical way to spend Christmas Eve

Look at the excitement on Hudson's little face!

Hudson's pants were too big, so I synched them up with a hair tie :)

"I love the ocean way more than the pool" says Hudson

Bonding time

What a trooper - getting back in after being traumatized

Where are we??

Sweet thing!

He STILL has sand in his ears!

Beau loved feeding the aggressive seagulls

Love the bare legs and diaper

Hudson was thrilled to find some seashells

I could eat that little face!

Beautiful sunset

My sweet babies were absolutely pooped!