I've never been a camper. I've always felt like most of my camping experiences involved sitting around, eating, swatting away bugs, eating some more, and pretending to enjoy nature. But honestly, nature is annoying. This is why our ancestors built cities, to purposely get away from nature because it's dangerous and irritating. They wanted real shelter, not tents...or huts, or whatever they lived in. And they wanted real beds, not blow up mattresses or mats made out of bamboo.
But I have FINALLY enjoyed camping. Granted, we weren't exactly in the wild. Some might say we were a few yards away from the 101 freeway with a train running through our campground and a mall within a 5 mile radius. BUT, I did share a bathroom with about 80 Vietnamese boy scouts, campers from the Red Hat Society, and other random strangers. That, my friends, is roughing it. I really wanted to take a picture of the bathrooms to prove what a hard core camper I was, but I needed my free hand to plug my nose every time I used them so I couldn't snap away with the iphone. (Pretty sure the old ladies from the Red Hat Society were the ones who destroyed the bathrooms.) I taught my daughters the ancient art of "the camping bathroom squat," passed down from generation to generation.
It was so much fun playing on the beach with the kids and watching them run around with their cousins. There were endless games of hide and seek, a lot of baseball, a treasure hunt planned by Grandma and Grandpa, smores, sand castle constructing, and tide pool exploring. We found sand dollars and sea anemones, and got to know Wes' cousin Chayne better. Taylor kept to the theme of the summer and conquered another fear by jumping on a boogy board and loving it. Corinne loved digging a hole with Daddy, like they always do at the beach, and collecting a bucket of sea shells that she ended up barfing into on our ride home.
It was hard to leave our 70 degree camp site and drive into the 110 degree heat, but it was time to come home to Zero and our own bathroom that suddenly didn't seem as dirty as I thought it was before our trip.
Here's my iMovie of our little treasure hunt. The kids had so much fun and are so lucky to have a Grandma and Grandpa who would go out of their way to plan it. Hope they always remember it.
Taylor was picked out of the crowd at a magic show. If there's a free or cheap event in town, I'll find it.
My girls. Love them to pieces.
We hiked about a mile to a beach with the kids on our first day. Aunt Ashley lugged a baby and a stroller a lot farther than we planned, but it was nice once we finally found this little spot with kite surfers.
Mr. Crabs greeted us when we arrived.
Some people have beautiful wavy beach hair. I'm not one of them.
Grandpa with his kite.
The kids loved the tent.
Corinne woke up so happy the first morning, just excited to start the day with everyone.
Taking a break with a little Scooby Doo
We saw a pod of dolphins on our last night!
Grandma was singing.
This guy let me get up close.
The girls stayed two nights at my mom's. Wes and I had dinner, a movie, and a full 24 hours of uninterrupted time together. We spent Sunday watching TV all day, something I NEVER do. It was heavenly..
A trip to Trout Dale with Grandpa and Nana. They both caught fish.
Grandpa is up and around again, and my nephew Robby is a Grandpa's boy.
Spent a fun day with Aunt Sue watching "Monster's U" and swimming. My kids have the best Great-Aunt around!
And Taylor got to go to the Dodger Game with Wes and some friends. They had a blast.
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