We woke up with heavy hearts as we had to pack to start the drive back home. I know lots of people get excited to finally be back home, we are not those people. Vacations Forever! After the car was all loaded and ready to go, we ran to the mall to see one of the Ecco accounts that Josh's mom manages. I'm not going to lie, I had never heard of Ecco's before she got this job, but they sure felt amazing on our feet! Josh and I both left with a new pair of shoes. We had already said our goodbyes from home, but did another quick round of goodbyes as we went our separate ways from the mall parking lot. As we were leaving I mentioned to Josh that I had really wanted to go walk around the Newport Temple, so he drove us there instead of starting our way home just yet.

When we had first planned our trip we were going to leave California on Friday so we would get home Saturday and then have a day to recuperate from a week long vacation and mentally prepare ourselves for restarting the new week. However, Thursday night we couldn't stand the thought of leaving the next day, so we vetoed it. We decided to have one more day and spend it the way we started our vacation... at the Beach!


Newport Beach was our destination spot for the day. This was the fourth beach we had gone to while in California and still never bought Piper a shovel and a bucket. We had gathered her quite the amount of odd and ends to play with though. Our personal favorite being the funnel from the car. :)

Here we come San Diego! I had a huge list of things I wanted to see in San Diego, and there was no way we would have had time to do even half of them, so I decided to just set my list aside and see what came up along the way. Not list planning sometimes leads me to a ton of stress, but it worked out wonderfully for this day. We stared with visiting the San Diego Temple which was absolutely beautiful! The beauty of our temples never stops amazing me, one moment you are just driving on a road and the next everyone is gasping, and trying to grab another glance at its magnificence!

This was our last day getting to be with Josh's sisters before they made their way to St. George for New Years, so we decided to stay close and spend the day with them. Our first stop of the day was the Irvine Spectrum Center. This was a outdoor mall that consisted of a awesome variety of stores, a Ferris wheel, carousal, and even an ice rink! We started with the Ferris wheel, Piper had been begging to go on one since she saw the High Roller in Vegas, so this was the perfect compromise for a three year old!


Josh's sister Kara attempted to teach Piper how to hold up two fingers to do the "peace" sign in a picture, which Piper thought was the same as holding up three fingers since she is three after all. This became the new peace sign for a week! We then did some shopping! Josh even found a new favorite store called Active Ride Shop, which says a lot because Josh is usually let down by the stores they have in malls. The I.S.C was a blast! It had such a good atmosphere about it, with so many great places to shop, and an equal amount of fun things for the children.



Hudson was excited and set out straight to the water this time around. I was able to talk Piper into coming to the water if we agreed to look for seashells for yet another sand castle and she spent the other half of her time jumping onto whoever was closest to her when the water made its way up to us. After we a had a sufficient supply of rocks and seashells Piper went off to make a sand castle with Grandma, and Hudson went exploring on Grandpa's shoulders. Which left Kassie, Josh, and I (Kara had to go to work) some time to explore and enjoy the beautiful surroundings!