A California Beach Day

While in California, we went to Capitola with my dad and stepmom and the boys. It was a beautiful day. The kind that makes me want to leave Denver and live near the ocean, no matter the cost. (I've never been one to love financial practicality). In any case, we had an amazing time that day. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day.


Ritchie took this picture. He refers to it as his "epic seagull picture".


Probably my new fav of Max. It's going to go above his bed, LARGE. Prancing on the beach? Glorious!


Also a new fav of the boys!




Ben loving him some ice cream.


With Papa and Mimi!

A Very Busy Weekend

Whew! What a busy weekend we had last weekend! It's been followed by an equally busy week and I've kept meaning to blog about it, but time has gotten away from me! Here's a few snippets from our weekend:

On Saturday we had our pictures taken by Blue Lily, a traveling husband and wife photography duo. I found them online years ago and it's always been a bucket list item for me to have family pictures done with them. I found out not long ago that they would be in San Francisco last weekend so I signed us up! I can't wait to see the pictures. I obsessed over our outfits. Like, OBSESSED. I ended up changing Ben's outfit and mine 3 times each. Here's a little sneak at what Ben wore...



And here are my boys and me before we got dressed (we obviously waited to get into our outfits until MINUTES before we started the shoot - duh).



We had an amazing time with Wendy and are looking forward to seeing the pictures. Well, that's putting it mildly, actually.

The next day we went to Carmel to help my stepmother celebrate her birthday. We had so much fun taking the kids in their first pool this summer!


Well, okay. Ben didn't enjoy it at first.


Being with mommy always helps, though.


Then, he warmed right up to the water!






Max was right at home in the kiddie pool. We could barely get him out to eat lunch!






While I love the trees and angle of this shot, look at poor Max. He was not in the least interested in being mommy's muse that day. He just wanted to swim, poor kid!




That was about all the enthusiasm I could get from him. It must be hard when your mom wants to be a photographer.

But, jumping into the big pool?


That was SO his thing.






So, I guess we made up for the whole swing fiasco by letting him do lots of jumping in!









After lunch and swimming my dad and Ritchie went to play golf while I got the boys to nap (with me). After naps we went and made s'mores by the pool.






His first experience was a success!

Finally, we went and had yummy pizza before heading home. It was a late night, but worth it because, as you can see, the day was a blast! Don't get me wrong, there were moments of pure frustration and sometimes I wonder if it's not worth trying big day trips like that away from our beds for napping and our toys for entertaining, but overall it was really fun and I think always worth the efforts.






Ben is a complete trooper. He had been up for HOURS at this point and was still quite happy!



While we were off having fun in Carmel, Ritchie's sister was giving birth to her first child. I was not without my phone for even a second anticipating baby's arrival. I went and saw my first nephew (aside from my friend's kids who are like nieces and nephews to me!) the next morning AND evening because I missed him already.


Mister Vincent Scott - A whopping 9 pounds 13 ounces of pure love.









Oh, Jen and Scott - you guys did SO great. He's perfect and lovely and I can tell you two are going to rock out parenthood. They're naturals already.

So, that was our very exciting weekend! We're ready for a little bit more relaxation in the coming weeks, but I'm not sure that's in our cards. We'll see ;)

San Diego Trip

What can I say about this family vacation we recently took to San Diego? It was better than words can describe, really. It was everything you would hope a vacation would be. It was exciting, relaxing, slow-paced, delicious, entertaining, and full of family. Just the three of us. I'll let some of my favorite pictures show you how it went for the most part, with a bit of captioning to go along...

We started our first day by exploring the zoo and some surrounding San Diego areas.

Little Italy was a FANTASTIC suggested place by our wonderful friends Kirstie and Nick and we had the best food ever there. Seriously, pizza is ruined for me because I'm sure (unless I ACTUALLY make it to Italy one day) that I'll never have pizza that delicious ever again in my life. Ever.

Max started this super charming grin whenever we asked him to see his "big smile". I love that kid. He seemed to really sprout this vacation. His vocabulary took off (including "hey-ca-ca" for helicopter, of which we saw at least 10 a day) and has been booming ever since!

This boy is the happiest I have ever seen just being outdoors on the beach. Or walking freely on the Coronado Island streets amongst happy strangers passing.

See what I mean? Happiness, baby.

Coronado Island was where we wound up after one day of exploring the San Diego area. Our first hotel didn't work out and we had quickly fallen in love with this small beach town straight across from downtown San Diego so we made our way there and stayed in this charming hotel located above shops in this corner plaza.

There were many quaint coffee shops to visit.

And there was plenty of personality in this little gem of a town.

We fell in love and basically didn't leave the island for the next 2 days.

How amazingly handsome is my husband? 5 years coming up this month and I couldn't love that man more.

And this one?

Don't even get me started.

Our last day we had to travel north a bit for our family photo shoot with the FABULOUS Amanda Patrice. On the way we went to Ritchie's favorite brewery - Stone Brewing Company.

When we got to Oceanside Harbor we had a little time to spare so we took Max on his first boat ride!

All in all a great day that ended with some fantastic photos and a tragically awful stay in a hotel that we will NEVER stay at again. Shudder...

The next day, on our way back home, we stopped to see the aforementioned Kirstie and Nick and, of course, sweet little Roman. I just love this family and was sad we didn't get to spend more time with them on this visit. We'll be planning another trip after Ben's arrival to be with them more!

How sweet is little red-headed Roman?

And how cute are the two of them together??

Sharing like a good friend should. Max didn't share... we're working on it. At least Roman has good manners!

That's all for our trip. Coronado Island is a place we will most definitely be traveling to again. It was so charming and the Lincoln family is thrilled to have found this sparkling gem by the sea to frequent in the future.