The Long Beach installment

It was our first “couples with kids” vacation with the Biglers. As it turns out, the most critical ingredient for a successful “couples with kids” vacation is to take your own babysitter! Tasha’s sister Andrea came along so we could have some “couples without kids” time. Yes, that means that I did leave D more than once and for more than 10 minutes. This might not seem like a big deal to some reading this, but it’s the first time I’ve left him (if you don’t count a Wal-Mart run) ever (and he’s almost one). Here’s the clincher though – he didn’t cry. Not once. Miracles do happen.

Long Beach was fun. Our original plan was to stay at Redondo Beach. We had a beach house reserved for the vacation, but once we toured it, we immediately started looking for somewhere else to stay. The location was ideal (did I mention right on the beach?), but the place was a dump. It was so dirty; it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned – ever. I wouldn’t have been able to put D on the floor at all because it just had nastiness all over it. He would’ve loved all the mystery snacks though I’m sure (gross). So we spent our first afternoon looking for somewhere else to stay. We got lucky and found a very clean – but very small (not that I’m complaining) – condo to stay in. It worked out great.

Our first outing was to the Aquarium Of The Pacific. It was really cool to see all of the different sea life. We saw sharks, sea lions, millions of different fish, coral, eels, sea otters, birds, an octopus, and tons of other things. A life-size (aka massive) reproduction of a whale was hanging from the ceiling also. The aquarium was so big that I'm sure we didn't see half of the stuff... Paul even touched a shark while we were there! I didn’t.

While we didn’t break our MLB curse, we sure came close. We bought tickets to the Dodgers vs. Giants game at least five months ago, which was kind of the main point of the trip (the fun part anyway). Well, we took the scenic route to Dodger Stadium through Bel Air, which is NOT on the way, and almost ran out of gas about a half of a mile away from the stadium. At least we got there in the fourth inning (not the bottom of the ninth). According to Paul it was a really good game, even though the Giants didn’t win. Even with all of the crowd noise (Dodger fans do NOT like Barry Bonds) D slept from the 7^th inning stretch until we left. (P.S. All the grandmas behind us LOVED Davis.)


We had a fun beach day too at Sunset Beach, minus the sunburns. Paul and Grant spent most of their time skimboarding and injuring themselves. Tasha and Andrea tried it too! The kids had fun playing in/eating the sand. It was really nice to just be on the beach in the sun.


All of the gaps between the major outings were filled with naps, yummy food, shopping, and sightseeing. Plane flights were good and the babies did fantastic through the whole vacation. D was so happy to be home though that he slept through the night our first night back. This might not seem like a big deal to some reading this, but it’s the third time he’s slept through the night ever (and he’s almost one).