Temple, Beach and Barf

Natalee, Haylee, Mackenzie and Kelsey in front of the Los Angeles Temple

      Yesterday (May 29, 2010) was Stake Temple Day.  About a year and a half ago, we started spending the night at the temple apartments to be able to attend the temple with the girls.  We get there in the evening, and one of us usually does an evening session and the other does a morning session.  Then we take the kids to do something fun.  Unfortunately, we were about 15 minutes too late for the last session.  It used to be at 8:30pm and we didn't realize that they had changed it to 8:00.  So Daren kindly got up and did the 5:30am session in the morning and I did the 8:30am session.  We slept (mostly) while Daren was in the temple.  While I was in the temple, Daren and the girls walked around the temple grounds and took LOTS of pictures.

Natalee and Haylee started fighting so Daren snapped a picture-they stopped immediately, horrified that he took a picture of them fighting at the temple!

   

      Natalee then got a turn with the camera.  She loved taking pictures of the beautiful temple grounds.  And I must say that she did a great job!  These are Natalee's temple pictures:

     We decided to go to the beach for our after-temple fun for this trip.  We went to the Santa Monica Beach, nice and close to the temple.  We hadn't been since last summer and it was such a difference.  Mackenzie was a brave one this time.  Last year she wouldn't even let the water touch her feet if she wasn't holding hands with either Daren or me.  Kelsey didn't like to get her feet wet but I think that's because the water was FREEZING!  It didn't stop Natalee, Haylee, and Mackenzie though.  They had a lot of fun playing in the water, while Kelsey stuck to digging in the sand.

     Daren made Haylee into a mermaid, but she was the only one that got to do that this time.  Just as Natalee was asking Daren to dig her into the sand, Kelsey started throwing up.  Luckily, it isn't that big of a deal to throw up into the beach dirt.  We immediately packed up and headed home for a very LONG drive.  Kelsey threw up several times on the way home.  I sat next to her so I could help her and keep it contained.  We just felt very blessed that we were able to get to the temple before Kelsey got sick.  Since my due date is July 21, we aren't planning on traveling again until after the baby is born.  We're much more careful about that ever since Kelsey was born almost a month early.

    We did get some cute pictures at the beach before the barfing began. :)

Hard to tell that she's about to get very sick, isn't it?

Getting cleaned up-she had to borrow my sunglasses since we'd already taken down the shade.

Sound asleep most of the drive home.

     Daren would be 'bummed' (hahaha) if I didn't mention the part about the hobo.  A beach hobo walked past us and I was feeling sorry for him.  We had brought so much food, a lot of it individually packaged.  He stopped not far down the beach from us.  I told Daren that we should give some food to him, but he was nervous about having me go up to a beach hobo so he said he would do it.  He walked over to the guy just as the waves started splashing all over his sleeping bag.  He pulled his sleeping bag a few feet higher up the shore and offered the man some food.  He said, "No thanks," so Daren walked back with the food.  He wasn't sure if the guy was annoyed that he'd touched his sleeping back because then the guy kept walking down the beach and left the sleeping bag behind.  Anyway, to make a long story short, I sort of put Daren in an uncomfortable situation and the guy didn't even want the food.  So he teased me about it when he came back but I don't think he really cared.  And it's always better to have offered and been denied than to wish you had offered.  If only Daren hadn't touched the sleeping bag! :)