- Day 2 ~ Newport Beach, California -

Monday morning, we were up early and ready for breakfast by 8:00 am.  We decided to eat down at the Sunset Station for the all-you-can-eat buffet. There at the buffet they had eggs, pancakes, mini waffles, hash browns, etc. That big plate of food made us full, regardless, we all left room for dessert. Even though we did have a big plate of food, Trey asked me if he could get a plate full of bacon.  One thing that the kids were excited to do was eat the doughnuts and ice cream provided there. After that we packed the car, got gas, and were headed out for California by 10:30 am.

It was four and half hours in the car, when we finally arrived to Newport Beach to enjoy the Pacific Ocean.  A big huge shout out goes to Eric and Jen, thanks to their GPS, it got us right down to the beach without any wrong turns!  Upon arrival, everyone was so excited to see the ocean, for the kids, this was the first time.  The weather was 73 degrees and overcast, so it wasn't the hot sunny day on the beach like we had all planned.  Regardless, we were all able to kick our shoes off, roll up our pants and play in the sand and water.  McKenna and Trey headed right for the water.  Grandpa Rod had fun trying to talk them into going further out in the water and beat the wave in, which both of them chickened out.  It was funny to see the wave come on to the shore and take Grandma JoAnn's new flip flops back into the water.  Finally a new wave brought the shoe back! Jeremy stayed on the tide line with Ally, Tyra, and Maddie for they were all a little hesitant of the water.  Everyone had fun filling their pockets full of sea shells!  Before we left, I did get Ally to come down and at least get her feet wet once.

After playing in the sand and water, we walked up on the dock to over look the water and look back at the shore.  From this height, we were able to see a boat way out in the ocean, two seals playing near the dock and a star fish on the dock posts.  The kids had fun watching the different birds come up and eat different things that others would drop for them.  Grandpa Rod bought a tiny fish from one of the guys fishing there, and before he had a chance to hand it off to Trey to feed to the bird, Grandpa accidentally dropped it and the bird scarfed it up so fast that we almost missed it!  

By the time, we were done walking the dock, everyone was hungry and ready to eat.  There were a lot of cool little shops and restaurants on the wharf, so we decided to eat a fish taco, fries, and drink Horchata.   By this time, it was nearly 6:00 and paid parking was running out, so we decided to load up and head to our Hotel in Anaheim.     Little did we know that this 40 mile drive from the beach to our hotel would take us like 2 hours on the road.  It was a bad idea for us to leave at rush hour and think that we would make it back to the room in time to swim, because the traffic was so bad, by the time we arrived back to the hotel, we were all completely exhausted.  We ended up getting a pizza from Pizza Hut, took it back to our room and hung out until bed time.  We were all excited and ready to go to bed because we knew tomorrow meant Disneyland!