Quick Beach Trip

Wednesday afternoon, Doug called me and asked if I wanted to go to the beach.  He and Scot had to meet with Daniel's Woodland, the guys who are making their five story Redwood tree (among other things), and Scot was taking his family over to stay in Avila for the entire weekend.  Daniel's Woodland is in Paso Robles, about a half an hour from Cayucos, where Doug's grandparents have a beach house.  So Thurday morning we loaded up and headed for the coast.I left Doug in Paso Robles and the kids and I drove on to Cayucos where we made the beach our very first stop.  Dylan had fallen asleep on the car ride over, so as I was unbuckling him I said, (to his silent, eyes closed face) "Dylan, do you wanna go to the beach".  Without opening his eyes, he immediately answered, "Yeah!" and started to sit up. Keilana needed no encouragement, as she was already bouncing off the walls of the car shouting  "The beach! The beach!"

We ditched our shoes and went running across the sand.  The air was crisp, but not cold.  I couldn't say as much for the water.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, but no matter what the weather, that water is always freezing.  We spent most of our afternoon building sandcastles.  Keilana likes to add lots of accessories to her castles in the form of rocks, sticks, leaves and shells.  This time the rocks were "prince warriors".  Dylan liked throwing the sand, of course, since that was the most annoying thing he could be doing.  At one point he found a board that was slightly shorter than him (it looked like an old 2x4 that had fallen off of someone's picnic table and been weathered severely by the ocean).  He kept putting it at my feet and then pointing behind him and pulling on me.  After several minutes (and a few more illustrative gestures from him) I realized that he was trying to get me to show him how to surf.  There were several kids bodyboarding and surfing, and apparently that looked fun to him (he's a much more adventurous soul than I am).  He was pretty annoyed when I told him we couldn't do it.

Keilana was much braver about the

ocean this time.  When she was about 8 months old, she was holding one of my fingers in her right hand and one of Doug's in her left, walking across the sand, when she suddenly charged full speed into the chilly water.  But I'm afraid the last two years she's been pretty scared of water in general.  She loves the swimming pool, but only if she's firmly touching the ground, or I'm holding onto her tightly. This time she crawled slowly up to the water and then giggled when it rushed up almost to her knees with the next wave.  She continued to play in it until she jumped, lost her balance and got pretty wet and sandy--but she didn't cry! She thought it was funny!!  That's major progress for her.

Thursday evening we traveled back to our old haunt, San Luis Obispo, where they have a 

 big street fair and farmer's market every Thursday night.  It wasn't the best evening we've ever had, but the pizza and cotton candy we enjoyed a long the way made it pretty good.  Since Dylan has so much Grizwear (that's he's now growing out of--shameless hint to family members for more MT presents for my children), we stopped in at CalPoly Downtown and bought him a Mustang hat.  He needed a new hat anyway, and this one should fit him for a while.

Friday we made one last trip to the beach.  I'm afraid Dylan slept through most of it (which makes sense, since he slept very little the previous night), but Keilana was very, very excited to be on the beach in her swimsuit.  I think she's ready for summer.

She keeps telling me she wants to go to Grandma's and swim in her pool.  Maybe this summer she'll stop being a 'fraidy cat long enough to actually learn how to swim!  She also enjoyed the walk down the pier, and the rest of the people on the pier enjoyed it when she suddenly dropped down with her face to the ground and her little booty up in the air as she tried "to see the ocean 

under the bridge". 

It was a very quick but very fun little

 getaway.  Next stop: Lake Tahoe!