Life McDonald Style: Family Vacation!

The first week of October, we loaded up the van and headed for a small lake town in California that was 10 hours away! A 10 hour car ride is not always fun with four little ones but we survived!! We got to enjoy this beautiful house that a Christian family, we don't know, lets pastors use for only $95 for the week! It was probably our most fun family vacation yet because the kids are starting to get to ages where vacation can be fun and not all work. Oh don't get me wrong, there's still work involved, just not as much. The house was in the middle of nowhere near a lake. There was a pool and a playground, where we enjoyed lots of hours of fun! There were deer everywhere. Each morning we got to sit on the porch with coffee and our Bibles and watch the deer. The kids thought it was pretty cool.

We went on a couple different day excursions that both ended at the beach. These pics were at this ghetto aquarium in Morro Bay. The kids loved it and had no idea that it was pretty run down, which I guess is all that matters!

The boys at Morro Bay. So here's a funny story: While we were walking around the kids saw a pillow pet store and had to go in! So we headed in not realizing just how much pillow pets are in the actual store! Of course each boy found one that he absolutely had to have. So Mike and I tell them that we need to go to the car to count their allowance and see if they have enough. Really, the cheapskate in me is thinking let's see how much we can get these for on Amazon! So we check amazon and count their money and Trenton is the only one who has enough to actually go back to the store and buy the pillow pet. So Mike is giving him the whole talk about how if he waits and gets his pillow pet on amazon then he will save $10! But nope, T just wants to go buy the pillow pet. On the way in to the store Mike gives it one last valiant attempt to help T save some money by telling him he can use the extra money and go buy 10 things at the dollar store. Trenton looks Mike right in the eyes and grabs his face and says, "Dad, I can always earn more money! Let's go buy that pillow pet!" We have laughed a lot over that statement but it's very true of who Trenton is. :)

Here we are at Avila Beach...we LOVE the beach! And I love all my boys!

More beach fun, Mike buried all the boys in the sand and fearless Kara would run as deep as we would let her go into the ocean.

Here's a different beach that we took a trip through wine country to get to. I love these pics of the boys!

We found a pumpkin patch while on the way to beach that looked like fun so we stopped. The boys weren't too thrilled at first because they were anxious to get to the beach but once they spotted those giant cookies and rice krispie treat they were happy as can be! :) It seriously was the most amazing rice krispie treat ever!

They also had putt-putt near the house where we stayed. Oh and a friend of ours recommended a restaurant in San Luis Obispo that served the most amazing tri-tip BBQ sandwich! So of course I had to take a pic and send it to her.