california {part two}

 

I am finally here to finish blogging about our Cali vacation!  You can guess the reasons for my delay… she was teething, sick, teething, sick, and just all-around crabby!  Same old story lately!

…

So after we checked out the mammoth trees at dusk, we kept on driving till we finally found a camp ground around 8:30 pm.  We parked the van and scrambled to move groggy children and make room for our sleeping bags in the back of the van.  I must say it was easier ‘camping’ with the kids than I thought it would be.  Susie had never slept outside her crib, but she slept snugly between Ty and I after she layed awake kicking her feet like a sea monkey for some time.  Mark was out in five seconds – he doesn’t wake up from sleep well and falls back asleep faster than you can say “narcolepsy”.

In the morning we had our beef stroganoff breakfast (freeze-dried hiking food).  Yummy!  (can you hear the sarcasm?)  But the sun was beautiful streaming through the forest. 

Driving in the dark the night before, we had seen far off ships’ lights and guessed correctly that we had indeed reached the coast!

We saw a little park on the beach and took advantage of it, since we wouldn’t be driving the coast for long.

Mark was a little worried that the waves would take Daddy away, and Susie was cool for a little while…

That is, until she realized the sand was sticking to her feet…

Here comes Daddy to the “rescue”…

But he rescued her by putting her feet in the big, loud ocean…

Then he swooped her up and rescued her from that too, so she forgave him.

 

I asked Mark to stand still and I got these pictures…

 

What a peaceful, serene place to practice your interpretive dance moves.  Why didn’t I think of that?

As we all made our way back to the car, Mark was running behind us all and thought that the ocean was going to take him away which you would think would make him run faster but he decided to stop and cry.  That is when Susanna decided she was tired all of a sudden so we officially ended our little beach excursion.

I snapped one last Good-bye shot of the beach as we left…

The Distractor just woke up from her nap, so I am posting this now and milking one more post out of the Cali trip the next time I get a chance to blog!