When you're on vacation, sometimes you need a vacation. So you hop in the car and spend a weekend at the beach!!
We drive down to Newport Beach with my mom & her bff Teri on Thursday night. It was pretty late, so we basically just unloaded the car and went to bed...
On Friday morning we got up, curled the baby's hair and walked down to the water for some "mermaid" pictures!! The tricky part was getting Ruthe to be still because she LOVES the water and just charged straight into the waves!! I haven't had the chance to look at all the pictures we got, but this is by far my favorite blooper!
After the beach (and after I rinsed all the sand off of Ruthe!) we went shopping!! We also stopped to look at some PUPPIES!!!!!!!! Ruthe was in puppydog heaven and kept pushing people out of her way so she could get a closer look!!
The next day (Saturday) we went to the Irvine Park Railroad PUMPKIN PATCH!! The pumpkins were all so big and had the coolest long stems! I love when pumpkins have long stems leftover & the ones at the grocery store are never like that. Ruthe also loved "finding" pumpkins and kept trying to pick them up. For a kid who can hardly lift a full water bottle, it was pretty impressive!
The pumpkin patch had all kinds of fun activities including balloon animals, face painting, a bounce house, carnival games, a train, and a hay maze. We tried and failed to have Ruthe's face painted, but she did get a balloon flower and play the carnival games!
Oh, and did I mention that she got to RIDE A PONY??!!!!!
So, yeah, that was pretty much the highlight of my day!! And Ruthe had fun, too. I couldn't take pictures while I was leading the pony, so my mom stood outside and took pictures and videos. ((Eventually I might load a video on here or Facebook, but I wouldn't count on it if I were you!))
We went back to the house, took a little rest, and then walked down to the pier to grab some dinner. And I got my must-have treat: a Balboa Bar with rainbow sprinkles!! If you've never experienced the joy of a Bal Bar, you need to get your butt to SoCal right NOW!! And I mean, I guess you could change up the toppings, but that would be dumb because rainbow sprinkles are always the best option, always.
While we were at the beach, we needed a place to stick Ruthe while we ate and luckily there just so happens to be a highchair from when my cousins were babies! 
It was super convenient, although the very 90s teddy bears kinda freaked Ruthe out. I don't really blame her! There's also a baby gate for the stairs that my uncle installed forever ago, but it still works! It's a good thing there were babies in the house before Ruthe because I didn't even think of any of those things before we got there!
It was such a fun trip! It was also so great to hang out with my cousin who's in college down there!!! (She's actually the baby who the safety-gate and high chair were originally used for! Crazy!!)
But now, I think I might need a vacation from the vacation I took during my vacation...