California Beach Getaway

Brady and I just returned from a little vacation to southern California.  We stayed in Dana Point and checked out Newport Beach, Santa Monica, Laguna Beach and San Clemente as well.  This was our first real trip away from Sadie, so it was a big deal for us.  We missed Sadie a ton, but we had so much fun together.  It's amazing all the adventures you can do in one day without a toddler!  Each night, we'd get back to our place and totally crash.  We did so many fun things and we were pooped at the end of each day.
We got there Thursday night and saw the beautiful sunset at the beach just down the street from where we stayed.

We got some really yummy and super overpriced ice cream at Dana Point Harbor.

On Friday, we went for a run along a beach path in San Clemente.  It's always more fun to run when there's a great view.  I was feeling pretty good too.  I only had minor ligament pain toward the end of our 4 mile run and I'm at 26 weeks, so I was excited about that.  Brady, of course, jumped into the ocean after our run.
Then, we went to the best breakfast place.  It's called "Stacks" and it was delicious!  We wanted to order everything off the menu.  I got french toast with bananas and nutella that was amazing and Brady got a "small" stack of macadamia and banana pancakes that filled his whole plate. We were pretty full when we left. :)  After breakfast, we headed to Crystal Cove state park and hung out at the beach for awhile.  Brady was jumping waves by himself and was so sad that I wasn't too interested in getting in the water.  He told me he was disappointed in me.  :(  I mistakenly shaved my legs that morning so the salt water made me really itchy!  That was my excuse at least ;)
Then we went on the ugliest hike I've ever been on.  Haha, but for reals.  The hike went away from the ocean and we were surrounded by dead brush everywhere.  We made it into a loop trail, so at least on the way back we got to see a cool view of the ocean.
We stopped for lunch at a place called "Shake Shack" and ate yummy sandwiches with the best view of the ocean!

We went to Newport Beach after that and rented a couple boogie boards. I was super hesitant at first because I was worried about being pregnant and putting too much pressure on my stomach but I was totally fine.  I caught a couple good waves and it was really fun.  At that point, I felt bad that I had wasted time before just sitting on the sand instead of being in the water!  Oh, the temperature of the water was 75 degrees.  It was perfect.  We got to watch the sunset there at Newport.  Watching the sunset each night was one of my favorite parts of our trip :)

Saturday was my 25th birthday.  Brady made a humble breakfast of eggs on a muffin. ;)  He got me some red Toms, a cute maternity shirt and a silver necklace.  He did a good job!  At 10am, we set off to kayak on the ocean.  I was so exited about this little adventure, but of course once we got out on the water, I started feeling super nauseous from all the rough waves.  We rented the kayaks for 2 hours, but we only ended up being out for about an hour.  I was sad to waste that time but I felt so gross.  We got to see some seals though!  And I really do like kayaking.  I prefer it to canoeing. Next time I'm kayaking on the ocean, I'll be sure to take some Dramamine.

After kayaking, I went to get a manicure while Brady patiently waited for me.  We spent a couple hours at Laguna Beach.  There were so many people there! Holy smokes.  Way too many.  Brady and I spent some time jumping waves.  The waves there were really powerful and high pretty close to the shore.  We were just standing there not really paying attention when all of a sudden we look over and there's a huge wave about to crash on us.  I plugged my nose and the wave pushed me to the floor.  I hit my shoulder and my hip pretty hard.  After that, I was all done with the water ;)
We got all dressed up for my birthday dinner.  I made Brady wear a nice button up shirt.  We went to a Mexican place at Dana Point Harbor called Tortinos.  We shared a huge plate of nachos and a burrito.  For dessert, we found a place that sold all sorts of goodies.  I got a Reese's brownie and Brady got a cinnamon roll.  Mine was a little disappointing. :-/ Brady says he'll make me a cake this weekend though, so I'm looking forward to that!  We went to the beach after the sun went down and walked along the shore.  We danced for half a song but it was hard to hold up our phones so we could hear the music hehe.  Throughout the day, I made Brady tell me 25 reasons why he loves me.  His second reason was that I'm stylish and the third is that I'm a good mom.  Interesting order there ;)
My birthday was super fun.  I loved spending it with Brady.  I did miss Sadie a ton though and wished that she could have spent it with me as well.

26 week prego belly

Waves were crashing right behind us... you just can't see them :)

On Sunday, we went to church and then hung out in Santa Monica.  It was probably the hottest day of our trip and of course we didn't swim.  Oh well ;)

We flew home that night and raced into Stu and Helen's house to get Sadie.  We were so excited to see her, but I think she was even more excited to see us!   She was smiling so big and giggling for 2 hours straight it seemed!  It made us feel special that she loves us so much.  I told Brady that no one has ever been as excited to see me as she was in that moment.  We love our little girl so much!  And we are super grateful for Stu and Helen for watching Sadie.  It made us feel so good knowing how much they love her and how much they enjoyed watching her.  They said she was really good for them and didn't even cry.  That made me proud :)

Sadie 18 month update -- Random Summer activities/pictures

Sadie just turned 18 months, so she had her first day in nursery!  We loved it.  She'll learn to love it ;)  She did pretty well.  The nursery leader told us that toward the end of church, she kept doing the sign for "all done", like she was all done with nursery and wanted to go home.  I thought it was hilarious.  This picture below is a few weeks before she turned 18 months.  She is the busiest little girl I've ever known. She wants to run.  All, Day. Long.  Those last few weeks before her half birthday, I would literally be sweating at church from chasing her all over.  We wouldn't have her any other way though.  She's a nut, but at least she's our little nut ;)

She's also started dancing.  She loves it so much.  She'll grab my phone and start dancing to let me know that she wants me to turn some music on for her.  If she's in the middle of a dance and realizes that Brady and I aren't dancing with her, she'll stop and point at us and basically say, "You guys! C'mon and dance with me!"

She's learning how to be soft since she's had some issues with hitting and biting.  She likes to show us that she's soft by petting us.  She recently started petting Brady's head.  It makes us laugh.  When I ask her where the baby is, she'll point to her own belly first, but then she'll point to mine and give my belly a kiss. She really has no idea that there's a little bro brewing in there!  Her world might be a little rocked when he comes in a few months :)

Sometimes, she acts like a drunk sailor.  She runs into walls constantly.  Tonight, she hit the door frame hard enough that she cut her lip.  Hopefully she figures out how to pay attention sooner than later.

She loves to pray.  She constantly reminds me to say prayers before our meals.  She folds her hands and can say "amen" at the end.

She loves to bring me things.  For example, I take my wedding ring and my other ring off every night and leave them at my bedside or in the living room.  No matter where I put them, she'll find them the next morning and bring them straight to me.

Sadie loves to read!  She will bring us book after book after book.  She could literally read books all day long.  (And sometimes, we really do!) Her favorite is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?"  She can say "brown bear".  She can do lots of animal noises.  She recently learned how to growl like a tiger and "ssss" like a snake.  And most impressively, she can point out Jesus in our church picture book.  In fact, we were showing her a book with different pictures of past prohphets and people from the scriptures, and she was interested in all of them but as soon as she saw a picture of Jesus, she kissed the picture of Him. I thought that was really sweet.  She also thinks that any old guy with white hair is "papa".  At church a couple weeks ago, she kept saying, "papa, papa" as she was pointing to this sweet old man in our ward who was sitting a few pews back.

Giving kisses is also a favorite pastime.  If Brady or I ask her for a kiss, she'll want to kiss the person who didn't ask her for a kiss first and then she'll kiss the first person.  She's very particular about it!

She still loves going to the park.  When she's feeling brave, she'll go on the big twisty slide all by herself.  This age is so busy, but so fun.  We love watching her learn and grow daily!

I have to document that she loves the tub. She wants to climb in it every day... 

That little pony tail!

Teaching her the importance of hard work ;)

he he he.  This little seat in the public bathroom at our grocery store is the best invention ever.

Sadie loves her daddy-o

Brady recently completed an olympic triathlon, and the week before his race we went to Jordanelle Resevoir where the swim portion of the race took place so he could get a feel for swimming in open water.  Sadie loved playing in the lake and finding rocks.

We went to the Pioneer day parade on July 24th.  We loved seeing all the cool floats and remembering the major sacrifices the pioneers made.

I told you she was a nut!

She's still a little short for her strider, but she'll get there :)

This doesn't happen very often, so I have to document when it does :)

A little white trash moment ;)

Sadie and her cousin Claire// matchy matchy!

Josh left on his mission to Jamaica and we were able to attend his farewell

Sometimes when Sadie is sad in the car, she just wants me to hold her little hand to make her feel better.  So tender :)

Sadie and I spent a lot of time in our kiddie pool this summer!

We went to see Death Cab for Cutie at the Twilight Concert series in July.  It was really fun to hear them live, but we didn't get to stay long because Sadie had a sudden fever.

Mt. Olympus/Mt. Timpanogos

When I was 18 weeks pregnant, we decided to climb Mt. Olympus.  We heard that it was a difficult hike and we were kind of nervous about it because we hyped it up a ton.  I'm really glad we did, because it was as hard as people told us it was.  There weren't any surprises.  We started at 8 am, so most of the way up was in the shade which we were grateful for.  The first little bit was pretty steep but it leveled out for about a mile and I remember telling Brady that the hike wasn't that bad and that people were just being dramatic... but then we hit the steep part.  The steep part that lasted oh, about 2 miles.  We gained 4,200 feet in 3.5 miles.  Straight uphill for 2 miles.  I wanted to die.  There were moments that I had to stop and breathe every 5 feet or so.  I felt bad for myself because I was 18 weeks pregnant, but Brady had to carry Sadie the whole way!  Almost everyone we saw on the trail commented on how awesome Brady was for carrying Sadie.  I wanted to be like, "Hey! I'm carrying a little baby too ya know!" :)  As we approached the summit, we realized we'd have to rock scramble a little bit and there were parts where I felt like a rock climber.  I actually had a moment of anxiety and major fear of heights as I was climbing up a particular rock face.  I looked below me and realized how steep of a drop there was and I got really scared for myself but mainly for Sadie. I was really worried about Brady climbing with her and she was really nervous too.  She kept crying when Brady would jump.  We think she's a little afraid of heights. But, we conquered that beast of a mountain and it felt good to be at the top!  The way down was pretty difficult too.  Our knees were aching.  Brady's legs were shaking with every step he took.  Needless to say, we were both really sore that day and the next!  We were so excited to be back to our car when we finished. :)

It's as steep as it looks. Maybe steeper! Scary sauce...

Two weeks later, we hiked Mt. Timpanogos.  Brady grew up with this mountain in his backyard basically so it's kind of his favorite :)

I've been wanting to hike it for a long time and I wanted to make it happen this summer before I got too huge pregnant-wise.  Helen and Stu were kind enough to watch Sadie for us as we hiked since it's a 14 mile hike and took us a good part of the day.  We started at 5:30 am and saw the sunrise as we hiked up.  I was amazed at how many hikers we saw!  It's a very popular hike.  Brady's sister, Heather, came with us.  At one point, we were talking about labor for some reason and a male hiker in front of us asked if we were talking about labor to help us realize that hiking pain was nothing in comparison to the pain of labor.  We agreed with him! Haha :)

There were so many beautiful views.  I loved seeing all the mountains on one side and then seeing Utah Valley on the other.  We even saw a herd of mountain goats! I think that was my favorite part.  They were right next to the trail with little babies.  So cute!  I'm glad they were nice because I've heard they can be vicious.  There was one part near the summit that was pretty steep and rocky, so on the way down we were slipping and sliding from the small rocks.  Brady got down really fast because he's fearless and not pregnant and decided to come back to help me as I was still descending.  The moment that he reached his hand out to take mine, I fell hard on my butt.  I got a pretty good bruise from the fall.  Thanks a lot for the help, Brady! ;) jkjk, he was just trying to be nice :)

Brady and Heather, at one point, saw where our car was parked and said that we just had about an hour left of hiking... I told them they were crazy and said it'd be at least another 2.5 hours.  Of course, I was right.  They had no sense of time and mileage I guess ;)

My feet really started to ache the last couple miles, so I would jog for awhile to get back sooner.  I really love hiking and it's one of my favorite things, but sometimes it hurts and sometimes I want it to be over with!  This was definitely one of those times :)

I think, though, that this hike is my favorite so far in Utah.  I loved the green and the views and the mountain goats :)

This is supposed to be a pregnancy photo// 19 weeks!