beach morning

the kids snack on sand covered crackers (yum!) while I pack us up

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We woke up this morning to a wide open day and beautiful blue skies. I knew there was only one thing to do so the kids and I loaded our beach essentials into the car and went to the beach. Hitting the beach at 9:30 in the morning still feels a little weird, but the sun was out and the air was warm. I thought I was being pretty cool taking the two to the beach by myself (last minute decision, M was working, blah, blah, blah...). After all, there's a lot of stuff to take and parking right off 101 and lugging everything up and over the dune sounds a bit daunting. Meredith walks well but trekking over sand dunes is still a bit tough even for Thomas (I make him carry things). However, once we were settled and the umbrella was up I looked around and noticed that I was not the uber cool mama I thought I was. On either side of us were mamas hanging out solo with their own three small children. Wow. We quickly introduced ourselves to one of the mama & three kids combo and spent the next two hours hanging out with them. Thomas had a great time with Fletcher (3.5y) and Meredith enjoyed watching Hartley (9m) eat sand. Their older sibling, 6y old Isaac, was annoyed by all since the four were intent on destroying everything he worked so hard to build in sand. It was a really fun morning!

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One of the things I really love about living in this area is that nearly everyone you meet is a transplant. I have met very people who are actually natives to the San Diego area. Maybe it's because of the way in which I meet people, but there are also just a lot of people who have moved here in the last 5 years. I can see how it's comfortable to live in hometowns where your friends are the ones you went to high school with, but living where you don't know anyone and meeting people from all over is really quite fun. Unfortunately, Angela and her kids are vacationing from Florida (dad was surfing), but it was still nice to chat it up about vacationing in Florida, the marathon last weekend (she ran -- weird thing is, she's the second person I've talked to this week who also ran Chicago in 2002 -- M and I both ran it that year), fun things to do with kids in this area...

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Well, everyone is either a transplant, on vacation, or retired. Lots of grandmas and grandpas living here... And let me tell ya, that Meredith is a hoot. I'll bet she's surfing by the time she's 4. Seriously. She loves the ocean and didn't even care when the water rushed back to the ocean, her balance was tested, and she fell face first into the water and sand. Something water-related is definitely in her future.

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post-beach picnic at home