Seal Beach...

On Monday Nick's ship pulled into port at Seal Beach for a couple of days. We have been trying to spend as much time together as possible lately since soon he will be gone for a long time. So I decided that we would drive the hour and a half to go spend some time with him. I picked the girls up from school and we started our journey. I really lucked out and didn't hit any LA traffic either way, which made me very happy. We got to Seal Beach and checked into our hotel while we waited for Nick to get off the ship, then we went and picked him up. We went over to the beach and walked along the pier while we looked for a place to eat dinner.

I tried and tried to get a good picture of all three of my girls... and this is as good as it got. :) It is seriously almost impossible to get a picture with all three of them looking at the camera at the same time smiling. (and what in the world is going on with Courtney's back leg?)
As we walked down the pier (well Nick and I walked, the girls ran down it) we found a cute little diner at the end to eat at.

As we were heading down the pier Brooklyn decided to chase this poor little bird. She thought it was hilarious when it would fly off to another spot on the railing. (it doesn't take much to entertain her)

When we got to Ruby's, the little diner at the end of the pier, we were all looking over our menus trying to decide what to order. We usually don't order Brooklyn her own meal, we just have her share with the other two girls so that food doesn't get waisted. Well apparently Brooklyn was not on board with this plan because as soon as the waitress came up to us, before anyone else had a chance to say a word, Brooklyn looked at her and said, "I want chocolate milk, hot dog and apple please." It was so funny. Maybe one of these days she will realize she is not an adult yet :) She did enjoy every bite of that hot dog.

Unfortunately Nick was not able to stay the night with us at the hotel because he had to get back to the ship. He thought he would be done with work by noon the next day so we were excited to spend some time with him. The girls and I just hung out at the hotel until check out time (11:00am) and then decided to hit up some of the cute little shops in the down town area. It was a fun little girls shopping trip.

Here is Courtney modeling her new dress coat that she just couldn't live without. (Nick thinks she looks like a little Russian girl in it)

After we were done with shopping we decided to head down to the beach since we still hadn't heard anything from Nick as to when he would be getting off work. We found a playground that the girls had a blast at. We stayed there for about an hour and a half until it started raining and we had to head back to the car.

Every time we go to a park Courtney practices going all the way across the monkey bars without any help. She was so proud of herself when, after several tries, she finally made it all the way across.

CHEESE!!!!........

While we waited out the rain we went and grabbed a bit to eat for lunch. Luckily the rain didn't stay long so I took the girls over to a park because while we were shopping I had picked up a few kites for them to play with. They were really excited to fly them so they were happy when the rain stopped. The wind was perfect for kite flying so they didn't have any trouble getting them up in the air.

While the girls were flying their kites I looked over at Brooklyn and she was sitting on the grass with such a sad little look on her face. I went over and asked her what was wrong and she said, "Bookin so sad...I flight kite." I felt really bad because I had only bought two kites because they were kind of expensive and I didn't think Brooklyn would really want to fly one. I learned my lesson.

Thankfully Courtney offered to share her kite with Brooklyn (without me even asking her to) which totally made her day.

After we were done flying kites we decided to walk down to the beach. About half way down it suddenly started to down pour, so we ran back to our car. I still hadn't heard from Nick so we just went on a little drive while we waited out the rain again, and it gave Brooklyn a chance to take a nap. After the girls fell asleep I drove over to base to wait for Nick to get off work. I just parked outside the gates that way whenever he did get off work we would already be there. I ended up waiting there for 2 hours. Finally at 5:00 he got off work and was able to come out and have dinner with us. (Just as a side note: as I was sitting there waiting for Nick to get off work my battery died AGAIN and I had to have a taxi driver jump start it for me) We found a little cafe and had dinner before we dropped Nick back off at base at 7:00pm and started our journey back home. It was a bit of a bummer that we were only able to see Nick for a total of 6 hours over the two days that we were there, but I was not about to complain because I will take what I can get. It was totally worth it. It also ended up being a little mini vacation for the girls and I. Aside from the two hours that we were stuck in the car due to the rain, we had a really good time.