Taylor Time

Another day in California I took the girls back to the pier/boardwalk to look for sea lions. Here are the girls being their cute-selves. Hailey thought it was pretty fun to chase the pigeons around. Here she is stalking the birds. Taylor with the sea lions in the background. At first we thought we'd struck out because we didn't see the sea lions in the holes in the dock, but Taylor's keen eye spotted one swimming, then, we saw the whole group bathing in the sun. For those of you who mostly enjoy pictures with the kiddos in them there's no need to scroll further. ; ) The rest of the photos are at a park called Natural Bridges State Beach. It seemed like an appropriate place to visit given the reason for our temporary stay in Santa Cruz.

The Santa Cruz Boardwalk 2 weeks in town and it was time to visit the boardwalk - Not nearly as busy as it will be later in the summer when the beach is filled with people, the boardwalk was still full of people enjoying the games and rides. Taylor got to enjoy the roller coaster. This was her ride of choice, or at least the first ride she wanted to go on where she met the height requirements. She also got to enjoy getting shot up and dropped on this ride. Here is a video of Hailey's 1st amusement park ride. We brought out the camera to try to capture the moment as her initial fear turned into a confused - uneasy glare each time she passed by us. We capped off the evening with a ride on the carousel.

Our Valentine's Day After church and nap time we baked sugar cookies together for our dessert. Taylor enjoyed decorating the cookies for us. After dinner we gave Taylor her special gift - a dip in the hot tub. This was something Taylor had been talking about for weeks. The second we told her our house in California would have a hot tub she was so excited and filled with anticipation for this moment.

"Exercising" Saturday morning I took Taylor for a walk in the stroller to get some exercise. I found myself wondering, can you really call it exercise if it is so enjoyable? Of course, that is the perfect form of exercise! =) The view about a block away from our house. Capitola Beach Saturday evening we took the girls to Capitola Beach in Capitola about 5 minutes away. It is the cutest little town on the beach! We had fun watching the surfers, walk around the shops and watching the sunset. Hailey is so happy until the camera comes out, then she won't even look at us. Shutter Speed The rest of the night I had fun playing with different shutter speeds on our camera. I never knew how cool it could be! The first picture is of the beach not using a flash and using a faster shutter speed. The second is later in the evening than the first, but slowing down the shutter speed as slow as our camera would go using no flash. Before After

We're in! This isn't the best picture, I just snapped one real quick to put online. Here are the girls in our living room. We are approx. 7 houses from the ocean (no beach access, just a nice view). To get to the beach you have to walk about 4 blocks. =) This is the room the girls are sharing. It's an older house so there are a lot of noises the girls aren't used to. Overall they did great their first night. This is a picture of Taylor's last night at Cubbies. Typically there are about 10 Cubbies, but two Wednesdays ago there was a small group. Taylor has loved Cubbies and will definitely miss her friends.

Relocation Well, we made it down to the Santa Cruz area yesterday, but thanks to the USPS and a lost check (next time we'll go with FedEx) we are spending a little more time in a hotel room together than originally planned. We should have a replacement check shortly and then we can begin getting settled into in our new temporary home. With a 14 hour trip to get down here Tabitha and I were thinking that it was better to split the travel up and stop for one night so the girls weren't stuck in the car for too long, but sometime around 3 am reality set in - the driving was the easy part, trying to get both girls to sleep in one room together with us was the worst part of the entire trip. Good thing we get a couple more hotel nights here in Santa Cruz to perfect the process:) All things considered last night was pretty good and so far tonight is going even better. I think Tabitha and I would both agree that one of the coolest parts about our departure was the manner in which we ...