July

July was a good month... as good as it gets for still living in an apartment! With really nothing to do and Jason on vacation for the month, we decided to take a little beach trip for the 4th of July so we headed to the Thousand Oaks/Oxnard area for a few days. We love going this direction as is usually less crowded which makes for a nice, low key vacation, AND most importantly, we can eat at the Cheesecake Factory... YUM! We did some shopping at the outlets and took the kids to Build a Bear. We also spent some time on the 4th at the beach. The kids had so much fun playing in the water and building sand castles. Paige wasn't quite sure what to think, but luckily she is a pretty easy going baby so she entertained herself by watching the other kids and trying to eat the sand. :) We ended the day watching a great fireworks show.

Want some sand! :)

We ended the trip by driving to Knotts Berry Farm for the day. I had not been there since I was very young and Jason thought it would be a fun place to take the kids. Now, the heat and I are NOT friends. I make it a point not to visit very warm places in the summer, and we only go to Disneyland between October and April. Why I thought Knotts (being only a few miles from Disneyland) would be any different, I have no idea. It was HOT. The kids were pink cheeked within minutes of arriving. Hailey was crying, literally, for water. We watched a old west show, rode the train and carousel, dropped something like $50 on an order of nachos, a burrito, and a couple bottles of water, and got the heck out of there. Here is the only picture I was able to get during the two "fun-filled" hours that we spent there

Hailey thinks this place is quite possibly hell on earth... I don't think we will be returning soon! Haha (Oh well... I like Disneyland better anyway... but only when its cool! ) :)