The Black Family: Santa Monica Beach Vacay!

A few weeks ago, Ethan and I were able to join Skyler on one of his "business/training" courses out to Los Angeles. Skyler's firm pays for him to fly out, the hotel for the week, and all of his meals. So instead, Skyler checked to see if they would reimburse him for gas money and we all drove out instead! We spent almost a week in a beautiful hotel with a huge swimming pool and an awesome outdoor mall right across the street! Ethan and I were in heaven while Skyler was hard at work!! Sky's training started at 8 every morning, so Ethan and I would go to breakfast every morning at this delicious cafe inside the hotel (luckily we had meal vouchers for this, seeing that 3 scrambled eggs cost about $18.00!!). Then we would either go for a walk or head back up to the room so Ethan could watch Sesame Street (he's obsessed with "Melmo"--that's Elmo in Ethan's vocab) and take a nap. Sky would join us for lunch, then Ethan and I would either go for a swim or head to the mall. It was a lot of fun being able to take this mini vacation together.

And of course, the whole reason we made this happen was so that we could take Ethan back to the beach for his 2nd time! Skyler and I have decided that we've started this little tradition of going to the beach at least once/year. We are also planning on upgrading beaches as the years progress. Think Hawaii and the Caribbean....we just love the beach!!! Anyway, Ethan was about 5 months old the first time and he was NOT a happy camper. It was a lot colder and windier our first visit so we think that had something to do with it. This time, it was about 85 degrees and very, very nice!
Not very happy at 5 months....