CARLSBAD, CA

We are officially on our family vacation here in Carlsbad, CA. It's about 20-30 min from San Diego. We haven't been downtown yet and that's ok cause we absolutely can't peel ourselves away from this city anyway. LOL. It is GORGEOUS here and we have everything we want at the Carlsbad beach that's just in our backyard. 

We rented a beach house here in Carlsbad. It's absolutely stunning!! Three bedrooms and three baths never looked so good. There's a hot tub in the backyard with an outdoor shower so we can wash off the sand and salt water before entering the house. It's amazing!! The kitchen is so top notch!! All Kitchenaid appliances. It makes Hoko & I wanna cook all the time. The stovetop and oven is soooooo NICE!! As in it's like SMART. Lol. Seriously. Your food never burns cause it has some type of settings that lowers the heat accordingly, I think. Everything is stainless steel in the kitchen. Even the blender. Lol. It's just so beautiful and seriously a dream home!! 

The house came equipped with a surf board, boogie boards, beach chairs, beach towels, toys for the kids and one of those big umbrellas that blocks out the sun. It's so GREAT!! The beach is UH-MAZING!! So beautiful and clean. It's shallow part is really far out and the waves are perfect for the kids to be able to swim in safely without drowning cause they're not too aggressive. I love it here. Can we just move here already?! I wish!! I told Hoko that we should definitely retire here!! The locals were looking at us like we were crazy cause its cold right now for them. And we're over here like, we're from Utah niggz. Where it was in the negatives last week. This is paradise to us!! We're the only ones swimming in the ocean. Everyone else there is only there to surf and since we're annoying and like to live by that famous saying, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Lol. So we went to the local thrift store in town and bought all the wet suits they had and hit the beach today lookin' like some locals!! Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh!! Hahahahaha!! It was our first time putting a wet suit on and I loved it!! It kept me dry and warm and I paddled my heart out on the surf board and caught a wave ONCE the whole hour I was on it. Hahahaha!! Yeah. I was being greedy with it and finally gave it to Polu Marie and Lote si'i who took turns with their dad. It was so FUN!! 

There's a ton more pics of us at the beach on Hoko's phone. I'll get them and upload them tomorrow. After the beach, we always rush home so we can shower off and soak in the hot tub until its time to make dinner. It's so GREAT!! 

We made the decision before we came to grocery shop so we wouldn't be spending so much money on food alone. Also because I didn't wanna always have to find somewhere to buy fast food whenever we got hungry. Especially with seven kids. That's just crazy!! So we hit up Costco, which is only five min from here, to grocery shop for the week. And it's working out pretty great!! 

Top pics are from yesterday. 

Hoko and I have been talking a lot while we're out here and we've been so grateful to be able to do this for our kids. They have no idea how much we love them and how much their happiness is important to us. We talk about them all the time. Our hopes and dreams for each of them continues to grow as they grow. We're excited to watch them grow up and become who our Heavenly Father has planned for them to be from even before the world was. I love my Heavenly Father and recognize that I have so much to work on to be able to return to Him someday. It's been a great week so far!! Our vacation is perfect.