We spent last week on Catalina Island with the Heffs. At Christmas time we all thought it would be fun to take a Ski Week vacation somewhere kind of warm and settled on Santa Catalina if Uncle John and Aunt Barbara would be so nice as to let us use their beautiful house! It all worked out and we had a great time lounging in the sun (we got lucky with 70-75 degree weather the whole time) walking around town, playing Scrabble going out to eat and playing with the babies. We missed Maureen, Doug and the girls but everyone else made it!

The whole crowd walking into town for lunch at the Catalina Cantina (It took us 45 minutes and 4 false starts to find a place we all agreed on/could fit a table for 14 and didn't mind 5 babies messing up the place)

John and Barbara's house is so cool. They just remodeled the whole thing (there are upper and lower houses) and it's quite an engineering feat! It's a fun place to stay if you ever want to vacation on Catalina! a 5 minute walk to town, views of the whole harbor/bay and a great place for families/entertaining.

71 steps to the top

Francie and Isabel had sooo much fun together... when they weren't fighting like sisters
that attitude was just moving too fast

We went for an evening walk on the pier

and they found any mischief they would wrangle back home (dueling backpacks for "their babies")

the next day we sat out on the deck and relaxed

while the boys "worked"

and we finally made our way down to the beach with the sand toys from Aunt Barbara on our last night there... poor kids playing on the beach at 5:30pm! Maisie's feet turned blue- but they didn't seem to mind.