Howard Family, Party of 5

It would really be much more convenient if we lived right on the beach, preferrably in La Jolla, because we end up going there so often. It would really save me a lot of gas and time.

How to make it happen.... I wonder if it's too late for Jesse to become a pediatric surgeon, and me to become a lawyer? Hm.

Last Friday, before I spent 2 hours putting Arissa's hair in curlers for a parade the next day, we went to the beach. Most normal people like to be at the beach when it's warm and dry, blue skies and all that. Me (being abnormal), my favorite time to be there is when it's like it was on Friday evening....cloudy and cool. So when those clouds rolled in on Friday afternoon, we hit the road (in Nana's car cause she's out of town...but she doesn't need to know about that).

We didn't do a whole lot, or even spend a large amount of time, but it was such perfect weather it was just nice to be there, taking it all in.

We walked, we explored the tide pools and found crabs & fish & the usual inhabitants, we tried to find good spots to pose for & take pictures...

(Look at Arissa's face...she totally doesn't trust me to not put them in a spot where a wave won't crash on them!)

Once she was away from the cliff and safe from the waves, she could smile normally:

We walked north to the Children's Pool and watched the sea lions do their thing.

"Their thing" is that they lay there.

Then occasionally, one will take off running ("scooting", really...but I call it running) and make us all laugh.

Or they make funny faces and scratch themselves,

or they twitch and shudder while their dreaming and Jesse surmises what they could be dreaming of and makes us all laugh.

We 'oo and ah' over the baby ones, Jesse makes up deep voices for the older, fatter ones and imagines what they might say if they could speak, and makes us laugh.

Mallory wants to go give them hugs; Arissa makes a face and covers her nose cause they stink.

The waves get bigger and closer by the minute, and each time they crash I think about how ironic it would be to be standing in this most perfect picture-taking spot, and then have my camera get ruined by a wave.

Soooo we quickly walked off the little pier and back up to the road. There was a wedding about to start, in the spot I've always wanted to have my wedding if I was a little bit wealthier and better at life-planning:

and so we took a few moments to watch the wedding party as they took their pre-wedding photos.

(And I took the opportunity to muse outloud to the girls about how if you go to college and plan things wisely, you too can have a beaufitul wedding in the fanciest white dress ever made, in La Jolla where all your guests are shuttled in, complete with a string quartet and on-site flourist! They kinda just rolled their eyes but that's ok.)

Then, because the girls were turning purple and shivering, we hiked back to our (Nana's) car and drove home.

Perfect "day at the beach" to me....way better than any hot, blue-skied August day when all the other "normal" people are crowding the sand and parking spots!