Cake Decorating, Part 1

Peanut wanted to do the cake decorating project for 4-H this year and had his first meeting the other night.

We are so lucky to have a pretty awesome 4-H leader who not only oversees the whole club, but also runs several of the projects herself. S0 grateful for all the time she dedicates to this!

Peanut had a great time learning a few new techniques for decorating. They'll move on to whole cakes next, but starting with cupcakes was fun. Can't wait to see everything he learns!

Goodbye, Oceanside

One last morning walk.

One last sunrise.

It's always sad to end a beach vacation, especially when the morning is as beautiful as it was.

(Found this house by the pier--it's the house from Top Gun, with a replica of the motorcycle out front.)

Already looking forward to next time!

And as always, the drive home took longer than we'd hoped. We got Bean on a train back down to campus at 9 and left less than an hour later. Even though I know that Sunday would be worse, Saturday after Thanksgiving is still not a great day to travel. But we made it with only a couple of extra hours on the road (glad we didn't leave later--the friends who did had it even worse!)

Oceanside, Day 5

Another beach day.

Bean tried surfing today,

and she was a natural!

She's tried before, but the conditions were perfect today, and we're so lucky to have amazing friends who want to share their love of surfing with our kids. She got out there with one of the men who has taught so many of these kids to surf and with just a little help from him, she was up on her first wave and rode it all the way in.

Peanut was having a lot of fun boogie boarding, too.

He's finally caught the ocean-loving fever, even when it's chilly and he doesn't have a wetsuit.

Glad these kids have had so much fun! It's been a good week.

So much fun with friends.

So many beautiful moments.

And then the evening finished off with some karaoke.

The kids had fun (and most of the adults, too.)

Peanut even got up there to sing one of his favorite songs from The Greatest Showman. 

Lots of sweet moments, and some funny ones.

So Much To Be Thankful For

The sky was showing off on Thursday.

Pretty incredible clouds in the early morning. I went out for a walk and Bug went surfing again. And while I waited for the rest of our place to wake up, I had a nice long talk with my Mom while sitting in paradise. Not a bad start to the day.

And then, after a kind of lazy morning, we went down to San Elijo Lagoon for a little hike.

I read about Annie's Canyon a couple years ago and every time we're down in the area, I keep hoping we can fit it in so I suggested it as an option for this trip.

And we ended up hiking with everyone! There were a lot of people in general, but our group alone consisted of 7 families--about 40 people. The slot canyon was a lot of fun, even if we had to wait a long time to climb up the short ladder at the end.

Love this family of ours. And love when we all get to be together.

Then, it was time to head back to the condo to get cleaned up for Thanksgiving dinner.

Our attempt to take a family picture when we were all in clean clothes. Not sure that it's Christmas card worthy (it would have been nice if we weren't so short on time and could have asked someone to take the picture for us, but we were running late because of the traffic getting back, and had a dinner reservation to get to, so this is what we got.)

Maybe this is the shot.

And no pictures of dinner--but a glimpse of the sunset as we left. We ate at the Encinitas Cafe--only place that would take a reservation for 40 people. We had one room of the cafe to ourselves pretty much the whole time, but were all separated into smaller tables, so it felt a little random. I liked the place we ate together 2 years ago more, although the food was pretty good this year.

These kids trying to act like they had to wait for us for forever. They took the stairs, we took the elevator. 

And Bug is still tired. He didn't sleep much on this trip, but I think all the early surfing was worth it to him. And he didn't want to miss out on any of the evening fun, of course, so sleep was what had to go.

We spent the evening playing games. Bean got totally hooked on poker this week, I almost won the Nertz game, and there were some intense games of Code Names throughout the week. The kids went for a walk downtown and back along the beach one night, and there were lots of trips to the hot tub,

We're lucky to have fun friends to travel with, people who love our kids and family, beautiful places to visit and explore.

 

Beach Day, Oceanside Day 3

Took a different route for my early morning walk on Wednesday. 

The San Luis Rey River Trail starts right by where we stay, so 4 of us went to check it out. It was a little less scenic and a little more urban than we'd hoped, but it there were a few pretty spots and it was a nice morning for a walk.

Then, it was time for a full beach day. Bug had already been out surfing, but no one else had been in the water. Plus, we had all the beach games to play as well.

Along with Spikeball, and digging in the sand, one of the families brought a new game, Mölkky, that was a lot of fun.

Bug was a little tired at this point from his early mornings. He played dead for quite awhile, haha.

The kids were having fun with that.

There was some sand castle building as well.

A little reading by the moms.

Such a fun group of teens this week.

By 4 p.m., most of the adults and younger kids were freezing and headed to the hot tub, but a few of these kids stayed down on the beach to catch the golden hour and watch the sunset.

Good times. 

Oceanside, Day 2

My favorite part of staying  beachside--being able to walk on the beach, often multiple times a day.

I got out for some early morning bird watching and walking. Found a lot of these marbled godwits.

And a variety of gulls.

And when I came back, I caught Bug heading out to surf. He met up with a couple of the men on the trip every morning for an hour or two and had some really good days.

And then we drove down to San Diego for the day. We met up with one of my old roommates and two of her kids to visit the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park for a few hours.

It's a nice museum and even has a few dinosaurs, which all of our Bay Area museums are mostly lacking. The kids all had fun, Daddy-o and I enjoyed catching up with T, and we took no other pictures.

Then, we got to pick up Bean from school and met up with one of the families from Livermore who came down to Oceanside as well. We got ice cream in PB before driving back up to the condos.

Caught another sunset on the beach.

And spent the evening playing games in the clubhouse.

There are a couple pool tables,

and foosball, as well as a few spots to play cards or board games. The gym is in the same building, as well as a sauna, so there is a lot to do and everyone was coming and going all evening.