Stones Family Reunion

This year for the Stones Family Reunion (June 18- July 2) we decided to go to CA and stay on the beach. Andrea and Ben rented small cabins on the beach on the Marine base.  I shared a cabin with Mom and Dad (so I had built in babysitters) and we had the most beautiful view.  Ben had work and school so he wasn’t able to come the entire time; he came Tuesday, Wednesday and left Thursday morning.  It was fun to have him for the small amount of time that we did.

I got up the first day and went on a run; around the cabins and up the beach.  I did some exercises in the sand, with the amazing view, and I felt so good about myself.  BUT I didn’t do it the rest of the trip- I was just enjoying the relaxing way too much. 

 

 The beach was hit by a storm earlier in the year and it washed out most of the sand, so there was not a lot of water access (unless you wanted to walk across rocks) but that made it perfect for sand castles and sand play, without feeling nervous that the kids would wander into the water without us noticing.  On Monday, everyone made a pretty awesome Sand Castle.  Elizabeth walked out onto the sand, bent down and picked up a double handful of sand and… licked it.  Yep, my 3-year-old licked sand.  Obviously, it was gross but she just had to know and, hopefully, she will never do it again.  That is not something I can say about James however.  I thought the reaction would be the same, sand in the mouth and then no more.  But he didn’t seem to mind and ate sand all week (I know because I changed sand filled diapers all week).  Neither of the kids really liked the water; James would crawl in the shallow parts a little bit but Elizabeth wasn’t interested at all.

In the afternoons/evenings we spent time together off the beach.  There was a pretty cool playground and a baseball field right next to the cabins, so we were able to go over there and play.  We got a good game of kickball going; it was pretty fun having everyone out on the field and laughing and playing.  Elizabeth is an awesome kicker and really fast (for a 3-year-old) but the teenagers thought she runs kind of funny (she doesn’t move her arms) so they all tried running like her the rest of the game. 

One night we played fear factor, which turned into ‘I dare you to eat this!”  Dad recently had gone on a business trip to the Philippines and brought back some pretty gross candy and Michael David had ‘every flavored’ jelly beans.  The goal was to eat it, and not spit it out, Elizabeth won!! Because even when she got a rotten milk jelly bean, she didn’t spit it out.  Even when we begged her, she didn’t spit it out.  (And her breath smelt like rotten milk, even after brushing her teeth multiple times- so gross).  Afterwards she said, “I didn’t think I was allowed to.” Such a cute girl.  I had to take James to bed and so I missed the end of the game but I am told it got pretty crazy. 

On Tuesday we went to a different beach on the other side of the base.  It had long sandy beaches and a perfect water front.  I was able to get some good boogie boarding in; I only lost my swimming suit bottoms once…. But I don’t feel too bad because so did Andrea and Andi! The kids LOVED playing in the sand and the little girls liked to have their legs buried and turned into mermaid tails.  James liked to… eat sand. 

On one of her waves in, Mylie got sucked under and pushed against the ground but amazingly she was able to get herself up and to shore.  She ripped up the side of her face pretty bad; lip stuck in her braces, sand burns, bad bruises and swelling. She was such a good sport but it was obvious she was in a lot of pain. Even now Elizabeth will ask me if I remember that one time that ‘Mylie broke her face.’ 

That nights we had a “Girls-Only” joint Baby Shower for Taylor and Bridal Shower for Kayla.  We played some silly games and then invited the guys to join us for strawberry shortcake. 

Wednesday, we went to the Pier and took family pictures.  It is always so hard and frustrating getting everyone together for pictures but it always turns out great and makes it worth it.  We got to walk up and down the pier and enjoy being in beautiful Southern California. That night was Michael and Kayla’s wedding reception.  They had a taco bar (delicious) and cupcakes (delicious).  It was outside and so the kids were able to run and play (which was so nice) and we convinced them to wear their dress/suit. They looked so cute and happy.  We are so excited to have Kayla in our family. 

On Thursday, we went back to the beach and enjoyed playing on the beach again.  It was perfect weather while we were in CA.  The beach and ocean are so amazing and beautiful.  It feels like a completely different world than the mountains in CO, what a beautiful world we live in.

Thursday night we went to Andrea and Ben’s neighborhood club house for dinner and a small FHE.  Mom and Dad reviewed the story of a pioneer boy, that we had talked about the year before, and re-challenged all of the kids to remember it.  We then all got to play games and have fun together. 

On Saturday, we went to the Dana Point tide pools.  The tide pools are protected land and so you aren’t supposed to take anything from them.  As we walked around the pools, Elizabeth slowly filled her pockets with shells but as we were starting to walk back I reminded her that she could not take the shells with us because they had to stay at the Tide Pools so that other people could look at them and enjoy them.  The entire walk back up the beach she would stop every 4 feet and carefully pull a shell out of her pocket and place it on a rock.  She placed all the shells out on our path until she was out and then smiled big and proclaimed that she had put them out so other people would see them. She didn’t whine or complain once about not getting a shell, she was so excited to be able to do service for someone else.  She is such a sweet spirit.