Happy 90th Birthday Grandpa-Great!

Michael's grandpa turned 90 years old on January 5th. His daughters, Teri and Calla, wanted to surprise him with as many of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as possible, so we planned a trip to California for New Years instead of Christmas. 

We were supposed to leave on the end of December, but we were fighting off major sickness in our house. I had fallen sick the day after Christmas, and within a few days we were all down with a nasty strain of the flu. Body aches, fevers, runny noses, pink eye, and terrible coughs hit all of us. We postponed the trip, but decided that by New Year's Eve we were on the upswing enough to go. Sadly, we didn't bounce back nearly as quickly as we hoped, and we ended up still recovering most of our trip. Teri and Tony were so kind to host us all (even though they did end up with our plague). 

Since we were all fever free, but still not feeling great and coughing a ton, about the only thing we did the whole trip was visit the beach. New Year's Day was spent at Newport Beach and walking around the Harbor area. 

Recovering from sickness or not, these crazy kids still wanted to swim in January!

The following day Hazel felt extra yucky, so Michael stayed home with her while I took the other kids to a different section of Newport Beach. It was a super foggy day, but the kids loved it. We caught a low tide and found some great things in the tide pools including a huge sea star and sand dollars. 

Then Friday we headed up to Laguna Beach. The kids had never been before, and we caught the perfect day. It wasn't too crowded, the weather was beautiful, and there was a pod of dolphins swimming just off shore! 

That afternoon Michael and Eliza went to the temple (Hazel was still coughing too much to go)

And that evening, we headed to Balboa Island for a family celebration. We had challenged the kids to each read the Book of Mormon this year on their own, and they all finished! So we went for Balboa bars and a sunset walk around the island. 

Then it was Saturday and time to party! We arrived early at the venue to help set up (and goof off!)

Grandpa-Great was shocked when he walked in to this crowd at the restaurant! It was such a tender moment. I'm so glad that we were all well enough in the end to be there!

Great-Grandpa, was also so touched when we told him our baby's name would be Lionel Craig Ballard. There are several Lionels on the Craig line, so once we picked that name, it felt like a fitting tribute to Grandpa and his whole line of family to use Craig as a middle name. 

We love you Great-Grandpa!!!