San Clemente

Matt Here.

Lots of pics to share from our great trip to Cali. We caught up with both families and had tons of fun, making the 48 hours driving round trip more than worth it. Christa will share more pics from her adventures with Lexi at Magic Mountain later. For now, here's a little something from the couple of days at the San Clemente beach:

Christa and the girls hanging with the Bennion aunts and cousins. If you look closely you can see the fear in Christa's eyes as she stares over the cameraman's shoulder into the ocean. She spent the entire time certain that the next swell would turn into a giant tsunami that would swallow her down into the deep, dark abyss that is the ocean. Funny, everyone else only saw sunshine and joy.

Just moments before this shot some cute girls walked by. Peter and Eric (the two in the middle) sounded and emergency alarm and quickly called for the cousins to action in an attempt to get the attention of said girls. Unfortunately, they were bested by Porter and Austin at the last moment. Note Lexi in the background shouting commands and orders; she's a natural leader.

After the beach we always come back to the pool to rinse off. Lexi is doing her practices on the wall; Grammi plays with Ben, son of Doug; and I swam laps, but not really.

Brooklynn trying to get a closer look. She is getting really good at grabbing fistfuls of innner thigh hair to help pull herself onto my lap. For some reason she has a harder time doing that with Christa. This is the look she usually gives me when she wants to ask for my credit card but knows she's in for a long argument before finally compromising for whatever cash I have on me.

My chronologically older brother Doug and newly returned brother Peter. He came back with a fake English accent but a true English tan. Lexi somehow made it into 75% of all pictures taken. Her hearing is so fine tuned, she can detect a camera auto-focusing from 200 paces and then uses her speed to make the shot before the photographer knows whats happening. Maybe all that running around and kicking up sand explains how she managed to fill her swimsuit every day with half her weight in sand. Also, just as Brooklynn has learned to grab leg hairs, it's pretty obvious that Doug's boys have been pulling out his chest hair. Hmmm, Peter's too....

After Brooklynn got over the despair of not being allowed to eat the sand, she made her peace and enjoyed what she could. We were able to catch her deep in thought as she contemplated some of the more serious questions in life, like formula vs vitamin D milk, and the possibility of three nap days.

Finally, Dad and Lexi learning to ride a boogie board. she had a couple of good rides before deciding that it was way more fun to dig holes in the sand so her ponies could have a house. She squealed with joy on every ride and even had fun waiting for the next swell, while somewhere Christa was holding her breath praying it wasn't a tsunami.