California - Zoo and Beach

Chris and Dave left Friday morning for Steve and Leah Ridge’s sealing in Utah, so Caitlin and I decided to take the kids to the Santa Ana Zoo.  It’s a small zoo, but just perfect for our little crew.  We walked the loop and saw all the animals, stopping to take pictures on the animal statues. The monkeys were my favorite part.  They were SO active, swinging and playing all over their jungle gyms.  At the end we stopped at the playground for our own little monkeys to play around.  The playground had a sand floor and Peter was a little out of control in it.  He kept throwing himself backwards and rolling around in the sand.  At one point he came back to me on the bench with his tongue out and mouth covered in sand.  It was pretty funny trying to wash it out since he really doesn’t know how to spit yet.

We were home by lunchtime and then let the kids play in the kiddie pool in the backyard.  With 7 kids under seven, we were content to take it easy and spend the rest of our evening at home.  We ordered a pizza and the Katzoff’s came over to visit.  It was a nice relaxing day.

Our kids always LOVE playing at the Reid house.  They often don't want to leave to do any of the fun things we have planned.  Jane was in princess heaven and Peter had more cars than he knew what to do with.  Alice was pretty happy using Jacob's toys too.

The boys came back Saturday morning and we headed straight to the beach.  It was a perfect day.  The temperature was just right and the water was pretty warm.  Too bad our kids were aggravatingly whiney and miserable.  Jane didn’t want anything to do with the sand.  Peter, didn’t hesitate to roll around in the sand, but was suddenly complaining that something was bugging him, but it was hard to tell what.  We weren’t sure we’d be staying very long.  We sat them down on a towel and shoveled snacks into them for a while and after that they were much more agreeable.   Jane was still concerned about the sand, but she tolerated it enough to enjoy playing with the buckets and shovels.  We built and sand castle and chased waves.  My favorite part was sitting in the sand with Jane on my lap having the waves come up and splash our legs.  It was a wonderful day and we stayed longer than we meant to.  We had dinner at Baja Fish Tacos and headed home for the big sandy clean up and then of course, games.