Huntington Beach Trip

I kind of invited ourselves to go to the beach with my parents.  And they were nice enough to let me.  I wish Jonathan could have come, but he's been working a ton of hours and just started a new job, so he had to stay home (kind of a vacation anyway with no kids, eh? ; ).

DAY 1:

So Tuesday we left about 9:30 with an eta of 2:07.  The kids and I rode in the front row of the Suburban.  Fairly roomy despite being between two car seats.  Right about the time we got to Columbia the back rear tire on the Suburban had a MAJOR blow out, so we had a short little break while Dad put the spare on.  Conveniently, there was a Sams a few miles down the rode, so we had another quick little trip while my dad bought two new tires and we sampled corn.  YUM.  Rylee especially loved it.  : )  My dad didn't put the tires on right then, so we had some major fish tailing problems with the trailer after that which resulted in stopping at several tires places in Florence to see about time/cost of putting the new tires on (he didn't have equipment to mount them himself) and was unsatisfied with all the answers so we didn't end up getting it done and just went slower the rest of the way...which ended up not being hard to do since by then traffic was getting pretty backed up.  We arrived at Huntington Beach at 5:07...3 hours after our initial time.  Oh, well. The kids did great.

(Rylee is watching Dumbo...the DVD player helped a lot. Thanks Nate & Geri!)

We set up camp (Mom & Dad stayed in their pop-up and me and the kids stayed in our tent), at supper, and took a walk down to the beach.   Corben immediately love it and it was hard to get a picture because he wouldn't stop moving.  Rylee wasn't too impressed.

They got to bed later than usual the first night, but Corben went down without too much trouble.  Rylee was a whole different story.  I had left her in there with my dad while I went to shower totally expecting her to be asleep by the time I got back.  It was 10:00 and she was bouncing off the sides of her bed literally.  I kept telling her to be quiet and go to sleep and she'd just giggle and infuriate me more.  And then she started calling Corben's name to try and wake her up, so I grabbed her and took her to the car where I put her in her carseat and went to see my parents (take some deep breaths) in the pop up.  I checked on her twice in 10 minutes and she never seemed a bit remorseful or even upset that I had left her.  (Which aggravated me more, but whatever).  After 10 minutes I took her to the tent and told her that she needed to go to sleep or I'd put her back in the carseat.  She was sleeping within 5 minutes.  Thank goodness.  I unsmartly stayed up reading until 12:30 because I was, afterall, on vacation.

DAY 2:

Oh my goodness.  Really regretted that late bedtime last night when Rylee woke up at 5:15.  Did you know it's already starting to get light then?  Me neither!  At home I would have made her go back to bed and fed Corben a bottle and put him back to bed for a few more hours, but couldn't do that at the beach.  I had Rylee lay with me on my bed for a little bit, though, and Corben was happy enough that I at least kept us in bed until about 6:00.  Still so early for us, though.  Grandma made us yummy pancakes for breakfast and then we took a walk to the store to do a really quick email check on the wifi there.  

Big chairs outside

Playing with the penny souvenir thingy

Our set up

(Yeah...we didn't need the heater and in fact wish I had brought cooler pjs than their lightish ones I already bought)

After our walk to the store we lathered the kids with sunblock and made out way to the beach.  Rylee was very proud of her seashell she found.

Mom made sandwiches and brought them to us at the beach and we stayed there until about 2:30.  Corben had one short nap at the beach, but he was still plum tuckered out and fell asleep on the bed later before supper. He slept for 2 1/2 hours I think. 

At 5:30 my parents said they were going to go to run some errands and take Rylee with them.  Often we go somewhere that time of day at home she'll fall asleep in the car.  And after playing at the beach for hours...they said she was asleep before they even left the park.  So my mom ended up sitting in the car with her at all their stops.  And when they got back Rylee stayed asleep while they brought her in the pop up and she proceeded to sleep.  

At 7:00 I had to wake her up to eat some supper and because I wanted her to sleep that night. She was GRUMPY the rest of the evening, but still went to bed without any troubles, if not a little later than usual.

DAY 3:

Managed to get to sleep by 12:00 last night, only to be woken up by raccoons at 3:30.  They were so loud walking around on the plastic outside our tent and then climbing the tree right next to our tent while holding/eating a bag of chips.  I was so afraid they'd wake the kids and so glad they didn't.  They were off and on for about an hour, though, so it kept me up for a while.  And the kids even slept until 6:07 this morning.  Win.

First thing this morning we took a walk down to the beach to see some of the sunrise.  My dad has a basket on the back of the pop up and he bought wheels to convert it into a cart to take stuff to the beach.  Or kids. ; )  I tried my darnedest to get some decent pictures, but it was pretty pointless between Corben wanting to run and Rylee wanting to be held.

(Note the ripped up bag of chips in Rylee's hands...left by the raccoons and taking them to the beach to feed the birds).

Rylee would stand frozen in this deep sand saying, "Cawry me! cawry me!"  Not Corben.  He just took off!

Hopeless.

After going to the beach my mom made us very yummy breakfast bagels and then we took a walk to see the alligators and Nature Center.  

(See the alligator?  This is zoomed in...the next picture is the same, just not zoomed in to give you a better idea of how far away it was)

Generally speaking, though, this sidewalk is slightly intimidating to me being so close to the gators with only a few rocks as a barrier.  

 

 At the Nature Center

Watching the sting ray

When we got back to the pop up Corben took a nap while my dad went to get the tires taken care of for the car.

Then we at lunch before heading out to the beach.  This is the face we get anytime someone leaves and doesn't take Corben with them. 

Such a hard life!

There were small rumblings of thunder and a few far off gray clouds that scared a lot people away, so there weren't a lot of people at the beach which was nice. 

Corben actually didn't spend much time in that 'puddle.' Most of his time was spent running wherever he wanted to run while someone tagged along behind him.

DAY 4:

OH MY GOODNESS.  I was RUDELY awoken this morning by LOUD dumpster trucks.  They were dumping 3 dumpsters at 5:53 this morning.  Are you kidding me????  My hopes of the kids sleeping in until 7:00 were dashed when I heard Rylee: "Mommy?  BIG truck!"  And then Corben started laughing.  They were both sleeping by 7:45 last night, so they technically got plenty of sleep, but I was hoping to get a little more sleep myself.  Boy was I mad, though.  The park's quiet hours are 10pm-7am, so to be woken up by loud trash trucks before 6am was just too much for me.  Anyway, things were made somewhat better when we had yummy grits for breakfast. Jonathan doesn't like grits, so I don't have them very often, so that was very exciting. : )

We spent the morning packing and had an uneventful trip home.  Thank goodness. We had a great trip and so appreciate my parents for letting us come.  We really know how to take the 'relaxation out of vacation!'

A few randoms:

~I had worried about having to take Rylee to the bathhouse every time she needed to go potty.  Turns out she only went there a few time and mostly we'd just pull her pants down and hold her to go in the grass at our campsite.  As a result, we'd hear, "I need tinkle in the gass!"  All the time.  On the way home.  At home.  We had to explain that that was just a camping thing. lol

~Rylee's air mattress was flat the first two mornings (poor thing) and we finally got it fixed for the last night.  

~Corben LOVED all the dogs that everyone had!

~So the first time we took the kids to the beach in their swimsuits Rylee came out in the water with us and held our hands and seemed to like it until a SMALL wave splashed her in the face.  It was game over from then on.  Corben loved getting splashed in the face and sitting in the waves and just the water in general  So we'd be out a little bit for Corben and Rylee would come running and yelling, "Coben!  No, Coben, NO!!!!!"  It was funny.  But annoying because then she wanted to be held because she was afraid of the water which is tricky to do when I'm holding Corben's hand and he keeps trying to sit.  : )

~Of course Grandpa put up a swing.  

 

Our tent.  The last night a front blew in and while the first two nights were 81 and 82 inside our tent when we went to bed (it eventually got down to 75 both nights by morning), the last night it was 78 and got down to 73.  Nice change.  It also rained for a few hours making for a wet morning for packing up, but oh well.  We stayed dry inside the tent and that's what matters.  (Oh...and note how close the tree is that the raccoons were hanging out in)