Laguna Beach, California

We took a little vacation to southern California. Packed up the truck on Friday and delivered Adah to my parents and then left for Laguna Beach Saturday morning. We stopped in Mesquite, NV for a nights rest both there and back not my favorite place to be but good for a cheap nights stay while passing through. Gary attempted to win our gas money but failed. The kids did good with the long hours spent in the car. Owen was easy to please as long as we stopped to meet his needs. Our dvd player is out of commission so I was anxious about keeping Ellie entertained. I packed a bag full of surprises and snacks to keep her occupied. It worked like a charm she was easy to please as well. I did load up a bunch of her favorite TV episodes, music, and audio books onto my ipod and that was pulled out when we were desperate. All in all I’m proud of my little family for enduring a 14 plus hour drive.

We stayed in a great little hotel called the Tides (thanks for the info Charie). It was a cute little place that had been totally remodeled and updated. They had a fantastic pool area with a great grill area and fireplace. Our room also had a little kitchenette so we saved a lot of money by stocking up at the grocery store down the block and making all our meals. It was right on the Pacific Coast Highway and only a few blocks to the beach. So it worked out well we were able to walk every where we needed to. We will definitely be back there again.

We basically got up in the morning ate breakfast and went straight to the beach, then returned for lunch, kids and Gary took naps while I went out exploring (shopping), then back down to the beach in the afternoons. There was a great little park at Main beach that Ellie couldn’t get enough of. She made a lot of friends there. It was fun to watch her interact with the other kids. On the last day she made a good friend named Mackenzie they quickly became pals and gave a great big hug when it was time to go.   Ellie wasn’t to sure what to make of the waves at first. She was a little scared of the water the first day and just wanted to play in the sand and collect clam shells. On the second day I finally coaxed her out to the waves and we had a ball running out to them and then running back in away from them. She even got so brave she sat down in the waves at one point. The ocean is very foreign and intimidating to me so it was nice to see Ellie overcome the fear of the waves and get in there and enjoy it. We explored the tide pools a little bit as well, checked out all the shells, sea weed, and saw a few little crabs. I can decide which picture to put up of the 50 we have so I’ll do a little slide show…