California Beach Trip 2010

Austin was SO happy to be out of the car. He is in the Day's Inn motel room in Encinitas practicing his, "I AM IN PARADISE!!!" There were a few problems with our room. The sand did not drain down the bathtub drain, the toilet didn't flush anything except the yellow stuff down, the remote control to the TV did not work, the television had lines through it, AND there seemed to be at least two small children running across the room above us until around 11 pm at night. Good thing we did not go to Cali to actually do anything but SLEEP in our motel room. (And wash off the sand and look at it in the bathtub.)


Deidre on the beach. I wanted to also post a lovely picture of Deidre and Joseph during the sunset, but couldn't find it in the two hundred or so pictures I took of this three day weekend trip. Maybe later. :) Saturday, we were beach walking, finding broken shells for Austin to put in the memory box he had bought for himself. Deidre got stung by a bee. We had to make a fast beach exit as later, she got a little sick. I think it was a combination of sun and bee poison in her system. She is ok now.

I love this picture of Breezy baby. Staring at her, I can't believe she is all grown up. When exactly did that happen? She is my last child.....Makes me feel kind of sad and kind of glad all mixed up into one mixed up emotion. This picture makes me wonder if I did enough for the kids when they were small, and hope I did. I see all of the wonderful, marvelous posts of this new generation of parents and they are doing a bang up job. Even if I could rewind time, raising nine of them was very tiring, and just don't care to go back in time. I'd rather enjoy them as the wonderful people that they are at this point.

This is Matt and Austin in the surf. They spent at least four hours in the water--Austin was close enough I could call and check on him. Matt was SO far out none of us wanted to swim out and check on him. He was above water--at times with up to 6-8 friends out there bobbing in the water. It was a great day to be on the beach. So glad I had the opportunity to come along and enjoy it with three of my girls, Joseph, and two grandsons.

Kristi on the beach. I did post one picture of Kristi and Breezy on FB in their swimsuits....thought I'd go the modest route on my blog. I should have done it the other way, as they would only be seen by the one other person besides me that reads this blog. Oh well. Kristi is a cutie. This guy stopped right in front of her and proceeded to change out of his street clothes into beach clothes....and had his swim trunks on inside out!

There is no picture of me. I was fully clothed and still, it was a scary picture. I might put some pictures up of a memorial we found in the Cottonwood Creek Park across from our motel. There is a story that goes along with that park, too. I'll write it later. Mr Wonderful is in ND so I am being rather lazy. :)