And it was seriously just what the doctor ordered. After having quite an emotional day, it was a nice way to end it by hanging out with these girls and just laughing. One highlight of the evening was splitting the Great Wall of Chocolate cake.

Good news is that it is probably the healthiest cake ever made. It only has 2240 calories and 89 grams of fat. I’m super excited to weigh in at w.w. this week.

Thanks girls and buon viaggio Courtney!

I miss the warm sand in my toes when laying in the warm sun. I miss the sound of the waves crashing. When we were in Coronado and we could hear them at night, it took me right back to BYU-Hawaii. What a lucky little 20 year-old I was to be living there well, for many reasons. But one of the things I miss the most is falling asleep to the crashing waves.



I miss how good hot dogs and s’mores are when you roast them on the beach. I miss watching the sunset, and the sunset at Sunset for that matter. I miss cutetanlines. I miss the smell of coppertone mixed with the smell of the beach. I miss standing in the surf and feeling the sand being pulled out beneath you. I miss the beachy breeze. I miss it all…the good and bad, tan and sunburn.

Here is my nephew Charles’ recent experience at the beach. I wonder if he misses it at all.

What do you love and/or miss about the beach?

So we (as in the Lesues) visited them (as in the Makaafis) whilst in the real O.C. We let the kiddies run around awhile and then we went to Sprinkles for some delicious fatness. After that, we headed on over to the Newport Beach Temple where the children were perfectly reverent angels. Except that Inez stole a rock from the fountain. They are all glued down or sealed or cemented or something, but she must have pulled one loose somehow. Oops. Maybe we’ll put it in the fountain of the Provo temple.

Here are some pictures of the Makaafi children, who should all be modeling and putting their parents through vacations and houses and such. My children couldn’t look whiter next to them, and rightly so since that is what they are. Beth’s children are half Tongan and once again, rightly so since their father is Tongan himself. Ilai, Inez, Gwen, Eden and Anela (or “Vanilla” as Inez called her).



I was also priveledged enough to taste some taro (is that right Beth?) with coconut milk. It wasn’t too bad. The coconut milk helped, I think.

Then Sprinkles…

It looks like someone is presenting them in this picture, but it is just Inez going for the one with the candy dot on top. The flavors are (left to right, top row): banana, chocolate peanut butter and dark chocolate, (bottom row) black and white, another chocolate p.b., and vanilla. They are very rich, and very yummy.

And not too far from Sprinkles is the Newport Beach Temple.


Beth and Fo’ou posed for the Prom

Here’s our perfectly reverent angel.

James and Melissa are also responsible for introducing us to Settlers of Catan and Apples to Apples. We once spent a whole weekend in Park City playing “Settlers” as we nerdily call it, and consequently haven’t played together since. There was a lot of talk of playing it during this vacation, but it never came to pass. We did however watch a pretty bad movie, Because I Said So. But sometimes the bad movies make for memorable memories, aww, girrrll! Am I right guys? We also rented Fletch, because to everyone’s surprise I had never seen it. Add this to the list of movies that I haven’t seen and thus am shocking to others, like Saturday’s Warrior. Well you can continue to be shocked because I fell asleep and still haven’t seen it.

Besides hanging out, watching movies, making cookies and reminiscing about random topics, such as Small Wonder, we spent Memorial Day on Coronado Island, staying with James’ grandparents who live down there and just happen to be the nicest people on the planet (I want to move in with them). We went to Sea World and Disneyland as well, which I’ll post about later.

Here we are at the park with the coolest bubble machine. We were the most popular kids there.
Natalie LOVES Minnie, hence the dress.





Memorial Day on Coronado Islandand it was perfect. No crowds and not too hot. The girls lead us down to the beach.


A true girl, Natalie loves shoes.



We had a lot of fun with the Whites and look forward to our vacation with them next year! Well at least I had fun, but I’m just one person.