Ahhhh....

we recently had our much needed vacation (stay-cation) which was refreshing. i unintentionally took a social media vacation too. it felt good to disconnect and connect with people in real life. ahhhh! social media, i hate you but like you.

there's a lot of good reminders on the web that deal with social media issues. i'll have to do a round up of the good stuff i've come across.

i digress... these pictures were from the howard johnson's hotel in Anaheim. they have a water park, which was the draw for us, and because of that, we packed up and headed to nearby anaheim. we loved that we were able to relax and not be too afraid of the kids getting lost. It was small enough to just sit and relax, yet big enough for the kids not to get bored. they loved it! i'll have to give a yelp review about our stay.

a few things i learned (or re learned) during our vacation:

it's easy to take a vacation from God when on vacation.
visiting other churches made me miss our church.
vacations can be tiresome. Pace yourself.
delve into a good book.
if i'm home, i'm undoubtedly cleaning : \
i need to learn how to vacation.
i needed a vacation from social media.
jack bauer makes us happy.
having four kids is fun.
next year, Lord willing, our vacation can't land during our anniversary.

A nice place to explore. Too bad it was 110 degrees!

The Sandwich Spot had the Best. Cookie. Ever.

The cousins had so much fun together!

Stopped by the much talked about Saguaro and Ace Motel.

Ate breakfast from Palms Greens Cafe. Pretty good blueberry buckwheat pancakes. The figs shake was disappointing though.

Our vacation ended last week, and most people would be sad but not me. Why you ask? Well, our stay-cation this year was full of activities each and everyday! We didn't intentionally plan for it that way but because our family from out-of-state was here, we wanted to make sure we spent as much time as possible with them. We knew our kids would love to see their cousins as much as possible.

What threw me for a loop was the beginning signs of shingles! The first time getting shingles was from Story's birth from starting P90X with my Lovely, only after a month or two after giving birth! My body didn't know how to handle the over activity, accompanied with lack of sleep and countless other stuff! This time I think it was from the same issue-- over activity and other stressful things. Praise God it wasn't full blown and it actually stopped. I prayed, my awesome church prayed, and I even searched my heart to see any sin that was lurking. I did see somethings I needed to work on and ask God for forgiveness, which was refreshing. Thank God for his patience toward me! I'm clearly imperfect and not at all deserving of Christ and his love. Thankfully Christ took on my sin and shame, and nailed it to the cross! I'm now free....Free to see my sin. Free to choose the godly way or the sinful way. Free to confess to God. Free to confess to others. Free from self deception. Free from hypocrisy. Free from fearing man. Free from earning my way to heaven. Free from everything that binds me to my old ways. Wow, how refreshing is that?!

I had a tough vacation but it turned out to be reflective. God showed me things that can grow my relationship with him, and in turn, grow my relationships with my family (and even my church family). Sooooo, the vacation DID serve it's purpose at the end of the day :)

Re-read this past post and it encouraged me...again!

"Battleship Sunk!"

Visiting this battleship for last years vacation was a treat. We were all intrigued with what an up close and personal battleship looked like. It reminded me of the board game Battleship, in which your opponent needs to sink your battleships, and if one is hit, you'd respond "battleship sunk!" --At least that's the way the commercials portrayed it.  

Moon Jelly

I realized I never posted pictures of our last family vacation. Last year we played with the idea of going to San Francisco, but we decided not to--It was nice staying home and galavanting around here. One draw back was planning. Since we weren't out of town and unfamiliar with the area, there wasn't any pressure to have an agenda...I'd get lazy : /

On our beach trips, we enjoyed the sun, the sand, and especially the kids loving everything about the sea! On one occasion, we stumbled upon moon jellies on shore! Lots of them! We decided to take one home, dissect it and make it a homeschool lesson on science. We printed diagrams, read a book on it, and watched videos. The kids enjoyed it and it was nice for this little guy, to just...fall on our sandy lap :)