It's nice to have generous friends who have generous friends. Our friends Jess and Deron were invited to use their friend's beach house for the week, and they invited us down to spend 2 nights and celebrate the 4th! (Which, by the way, was major culture shock after not being in the US for July 4th in many years...who knew they made so many starred and striped outfits for all ages and social classes?)

The beach house was awesome...simple, cute, and when you took one step from the kitchen, you were on the sand. The girls loved having their own little beach to play in. The water was freezing, but that didn't keep a certain hubby of mine from taking a dip! And consequently having a literal brain freeze.

I'm learning that the southern California portrayed in the movies is not entirely true. For example, the beach is never sunny here...at least not during the summer. This week, it was about 69 degrees and cloudy, which is about the norm. Not the sunny Cal pictured in the movies.

Also, not everybody in LA is fake and plastic and materialistic as portrayed in Hollywood. That is not the LA we see everyday. However, Newport Beach was in fact fake and plastic and throngs of white, drunk college kids. Just like the OC you saw on TV. That does, sadly, exist in some places. The good thing about having lots of rich kids partying beside you is that they don't care about the $4500 fine for shooting off illegal fireworks, so we got a great private show! Until they started shooting fireworks at each other.....and playing Yankee Doodle Dandy over their stereo system. Seriously. This is what being cool means????

Anyways, we thoroughly enjoyed the trip, especially because Wednesday was the only full 24 hour stretch of time that Elvis and I will  be able to be together for the entire summer because his only days off- Wed and Thurs- are the only days I work at World Vision (so as to be able to use the car and have someone always with Suzy) so we never have a whole day together. We cherished that day on the beach together as a family!

at a 4th of july festival...which included a dog in costume parade

the view from the kitchen sink

the beach is better without pants

jess, deron, elvis

bonfire