Road trip for Christmas

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It happened again this year. December came around and we realized that Josh had a use it or lose it situation with his time off. Rather than lose it, he took from December 18th-January 5th off. It was delightful to have him around for those weeks. Since he had such a long time off work we decided that a road trip to Los Angeles, to visit Nana and Papa, was in order. In case you are wondering, that is just over 2,200 miles round trip. Wow. What were we thinking?

We drove straight through on the way down and it took 19.5 hours. We arrived early in the morning on the 23rd and spend most of that day recuperating. The following day (Christmas Eve) we went to the beach. It wasn't great beach weather by Southern California standards, but it felt great to us. It was in the 60's and sunny almost every day we were there. In addition to hitting the beach, which we did twice, we also visited an aquarium, the LA zoo, and a train museum. We ate at a few of our favorite restaurants, visited with some friends, saw the new Star Wars movie, and had a really wonderful time spending our days with Josh's family. I'm not sure we will make that drive again any time soon, but we sure enjoyed our time there. 

Josh and Eli playing in the waves on Christmas Eve.

Eli got a train set for Christmas. He loves playing on it and I love setting up the new tracks. It's a win-win. 

The dogs had a nice Christmas too.  

Touching a starfish. Eli did not love the touch tank at the aquarium. The starfish was the only thing we could convince him to touch and only after much persuasion. 

Eli wanted to take a picture of the fish. I love that you can see his reflection in the glass. 

My favorite shark

Eli spent hours in the back of Papa's truck with Luna, Jake (Papa's dog) and the tools. He loved "working" with all the tools. 

Going off to build a sand castle. Our first and second building sites were washed out within minutes of beginning to build. Third time was the charm. 

Our completed castle. 

Running from the waves. 

This guy.

Most of the time we would run from the waves, but sometimes we would stand and let them rush over our toes. I misjudged how high this wave would splash up and we got a little wet...

After we got hit by the wave. 

Father and son

Papa, Eli, and Josh. Three generations of Conley men.

Checking out the chimpanzees at the zoo. (L to R: Eli, Josh, Lauren, Nana)

We had a great trip and love spending time with our family. It was a fantastic way to end 2015 and begin 2016. We are looking forward to all that 2016 brings!

Comments

  1. RebeccaJanuary 27, 2016 at 4:50 AM

    It was a great Christmas visit and we loved having everyone here! The holidays are made for family and having your precious family here made the holidays extra special for us. Thanks for the long drive :) We love you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AngieFebruary 2, 2016 at 10:10 PM

    You got some fun pictures! What a fun trip. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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