4th of July Weekend

This past weekend was pretty cool. Thursday night we had a barbecue and invited over a few of our friends from the Glendale Ward (our old ward). It was actually alot of fun - I always dread having people over, but it always seems to turn out okay.

Friday, the fourth, we had planned to go to a local fireworks event with the kids, but we spent too much time looking at houses, and when we tried to find a parking spot, we realized that it just wasn't going to work. We ended up getting some In-N-Out and watching the show from our driveway, which was a WAY better idea. The noise would have scared the kids to death if we had been any closer, and then we would have had to hike back to the car with spastic little ones.

Connor really enjoyed the fireworks this year, and, surprisingly, so did Elise. Last year, at Ryan's coworker's house, we had to take them both inside so they'd stop screaming.

The next day we went to Zuma Beach with the Hillquists and some friends of theirs. We hadn't planned on going to the beach, since we were convinced that it would be too crowded. When we got the invite that morning, though, we felt like we should accept.

Our earlier fears were warranted - after driving an hour to the beach, we were told that there were too many people there, and the sheriff had shut down the parking lots. We drove around and waited for about 45 minutes, and were finally let in.(Online picture of Zuma Beach when it wasn't full of people)

It turned out to be a fun trip - Connor and Elise played in the sand (Connor is still not a fan of the ocean, we'll see if that changes this year), and Ryan got to go boogie boarding. The people we met were really cool, too. I'm not sure if we'll go to Zuma beach again, though. It's just so far away!

Elise, asleep in her spaghetti . . . .