The first 6 weeks of summer was filled with:
swimming lessons, dad traveling, ballet camp, and family weddings.
But somewhere in the midst of it all, we found a week. A week to spend together.
Just the 5 of us.
We originally planned on staying at a beach nearby,
but a couple days before we left, the weather turned cold..
and the forecast predicted high 60′s for the week.
60′s at the beach? Not what we wanted.
We had 2 rules: fun and sun.
On Monday, we headed south.
We stopped for lunch in Pismo Beach.
Even payed 5 bucks to drive our car down to the waters edge.
Pretty cool.
Did I mention it was chilly?
So we kept driving south.
And found a great deal on a hotel with a suite.
We were about 45 min. from the beach, but at least it was hot,
and the kids got some lessons in sandcastle building.
We planned many fun activities,
like going to the movies (Winnie the Pooh).
and we couldn’t pass up,
Chick-fil-A (okay, so we went 3 times that week!)
But the highlight of the week:
Disneyland!!!
It pays to have friends in high places- we only had to buy 1 ticket.
The girls were in heaven. Mesmerized by everything they saw.
We stood in line for 45 min. to see this beauty.
But these faces were worth it.
And at the end of the day we even met the star of the show.
I wasn’t sure how the kids would handle the day, or how long they would last.
By 8pm, Efraim was fast asleep in the stroller, and Cailyn didn’t want to get out of hers.
But still standing at 9:30pm, this girl waited (very) patiently for the firework show.
No whining, no complaining, and she walked with the grown ups all day long. I was amazed!
But hey, it’s Disneyland, maybe it really is the happiest place on earth!
Great week. Great memories. Great vacation.
Till next summer…
Filipe flew to Florida on Friday to attend his cousins wedding leaving me with the kids for the weekend. It felt like he had just returned from Ethiopia, and I didn’t want to tell the girls about him leaving again. In fact, I didn’t tell them until the day before, and when I did, I followed it up with, “let’s do something super fun!”. (You can get my girls’ attention pretty quickly by preceding it with the word “super”. For example, “it’s going to be hot today” doesn’t motivate, but “it’s going to be super hot” does.)
Summer took a while to arrive in the Bay area this year. We shivered our way through the month of June acting like it was summer, but really we were just fooling ourselves. So when temperatures shot up to the 80′s & 90′s the last couple weeks, I could barely contain myself. Last week, I saw on the weather that the beaches would get hot too, and I couldn’t resist. The beach isn’t always hot here in Northern California- even in the summer, so I couldn’t pass on a good beach day- even if it meant doing it solo with the kids.
So I followed up, “let’s do something super fun!” with “we should go to the beach!”. The girls got really excited and it helped them not focus so much on Daddy being gone.
Saturday morning we piled in the car at 8:30am, stopped for coffee and donuts, and arrived in Santa Cruz by 10am. We spent all morning there, played in the sand, and splashed in the frigid water. Lily (my 5 year old) couldn’t wait to get her feet wet, but the sound of the crashing waves made Cailyn (my 3 year old) nervous. It took us a few minutes to get her closer to the water. Finally she came and would tiptoe slowly toward the water. As soon as the waves crashed, she bolted out like the water would attack her or something. And Efraim, well he was wrapped around my arm like a monkey anytime I got close to the water. He loved playing in the sand though, probably swallowed a few fistfuls, but he was happy.
Here’s a picture of us eating lunch.
I couldn’t exactly take many pictures. I stayed busy sitting in the middle of the sand toys covered in sand, but oh so happy. Summer finally made it to the Bay, and this beach lover couldn’t have been happier. Well, we were sad Daddy couldn’t be there, but we do have a family vacation planned in a couple weeks and we are all headed to the beach for a week. Can’t wait!
