One particularly fun afternoon we took a Shields out for a day sail to the Yacht Club. This boat was reminiscent to Synnove 3, the boat we sailed in the harbor with my grandfather years ago. The kids were terrified by how much it heeled, but I know at least Jonathan, Uncle Brad, Aunt Julie, myself (and I think Uncle Brian) were having an absolute blast!

It was a lot of fun to see the recently rebuilt Newport Harbor Yacht Club. The last time we visited it was under massive construction and the club was basically on the beach and a very large boat. Uncle Brad previously served as Commodore of the club (just as my Grandfather predicted decades ago) and was on the heritage committee, involved in preserving the history of the club in the rebuild. It was neat to see all the small touches made to make the new club feel traditional and historic yet fresh and modernized.

On one of our final mornings Kieron and Silas had spent the night at Uncle Brian’s, so Jonathan and I took Avery & Layla for a walk around Balboa Island. It was fun checking out all the houses and boats. We stopped for coffee & frozen banana Balboa Bars.

The boys were all really hoping to go aboard Galatea, again. However she was under pretty serious construction, but Uncle Brad and Aunt Julie took us to see the improvements underway. We had a fun evening out checking out the harbor.

One day at Disney Land was all we needed during our trip this year. We arrived early, stayed late, and managed to be quite efficient having gone just a couple years ago. Starting to feel like pros!

Here are some pics from our first day sailing in Newport Harbor. We took out a bigger boat than last time and the kids were thoroughly distracted by exploring the cabin and various nooks and crannies down below. We got them out on deck as much as we could!