Southern California Trip

Our annual trip to visit my snow-bird parents started out kind of rough this year.  Hubby was in town but working, so we couldn't leave until he got home.  And the snowstorm that started just got worse and worse, until when we finally left at about 7:30 pm on the 16th of February it was whipping up to be a blizzard.
It's a 12 hour drive, or so, and we lost nearly two hours the first night by slowing down because we COULDN'T SEE A DARNED THING on the road.  It was pretty harrowing, one of the scariest driving experiences I've had.
We had arranged to go the same time as my brother's family this year.  They left an hour ahead of us, and ran just ahead of the storm, where we were right in the middle of it.  They made it to Vegas for the night.  We made it to Cedar City (175 miles behind them) the same time they did (1:30 am.).
The next day Hubby was beat from the stress of driving the night before, so I drove.  I was so relieved to not be driving into a blinding snowstorm, I didn't pay attention to the car and I RAN OUT OF GAS about 20 miles north of Vegas.  It took AAA about an hour to get to us.
So my brother's family left an hour before us, but got to the beach about four hours ahead of us, long enough to play on the beach for the afternoon before we even got there.  Dagnabbit!


We went to Disneyland on Friday, and had one of the best times we've ever had.  My brother's youngest daughter and Thing 2 braved each other into going on the Tower of Terror.  Thing 2 talked her cousin into the California Screamer roller coaster and Thunder Mountain.  Thing 1 is more tentative about the Tower of Terror and the Screamer, and she sat back with my brother's 2nd oldest who is also not as into the rides.  So it worked out for everyone!


All in all it was a great day, until we got rained out.  Thing 1 was drenched from the bottom of her raincoat to her socks, and so we bugged out around 9:00 pm.  My brother and his die-hard family stayed until nearly 11:30 or so.


The next day we spent at the beach, with the little girls boogie boarding and burying each other in the sand.  My brother's older daughters boogie boarded and body surfed, while the parents lined up their beach chairs and read their books.
There was also some shopping going on, who can bypass the Carlsbad Outlet mall?


My brother's family had to get back, so they left Monday morning.  We moved out of the condo we had rented and into the spare room of my parent's condo for the rest of our trip.  We mostly spent our days on the beach after the left, but did take the girls to Legoland, and had a great time there.

It was a wonderful trip!  AND one of the bonuses was we drove back Friday to avoid a storm, and we did!  And we didn't run out of gas, either!
And since it's a pain to manipulate them into the appropriate place in the story, the photos are all just dumped at the end.

My brother's oldest, 3rd, and 2nd daughters...

 

My sister-in-law (who I rarely get pictures of because she's camera shy) and Thing 2.

 In California Adventure Thing 2 was picked to participate with the Super Dudes.  She exhibited great strength by lifting this huge weight over her head using the controversial "thumbs behind" grip.

Here you see the backs of Hubby, Thing 1's head, then Nieces 1 and 2, my brother, his wife, and Niece 4 all heading to the exit in the rain.

Back at the beach the "adults" and my oldest niece didn't get in the water as much, everyone had a book to read while we monitored the younger kids.

Thing 1 and my youngest niece did a lot of boogie boarding.

At one point my two and my brother's youngest were all out boogie boarding.

 My brother's middle daughters were very good sports and helped bury my two and their younger sister.  Left to right they are my brother's youngest, 2nd oldest, and 3rd oldest, Thing 1, and Thing 2's head attached to the sand... octopus or whatever it is.

At Legoland Hubby and Thing 1 spent some quality time at the building table in Legoland.  Thing 2 and I joined them after we were done playing video games in the other room.

 We waited in line for this ride for the LONGEST time... even though the park wasn't that crowded and the line wasn't that long... it was just SO SLOW.  Legoland hasn't quite figured out the quick line system like Disneyland has.

Back at the beach Hubby and Thing 2 did some boogie boarding.

 Mostly when Hubby or I go out with the girls, we stand in the water and then rocket them ahead of the wave so they have a good ride.

 Thing 2 had had enough of the beach, she wanted to spend the last day at the pool.

Grandma and I had to go out to see the sandcastle that Hubby and Thing 1 had built before the sun set and the water washed it away.

Yet another marvelous trip, made even more marvelous by playing with the cousins for a couple of days!

The Long and Winding Road Home

Friday, our last day in Santa Cruz, was wonderful. The girls and I went to the beach just after lunch - which was earlier than usual, and Hubby joined us after a half day at his client.

Hubby had wanted to go see a Redwood park, but the girls had spent their whole time on the beach looking forward to him getting there. So it was hard to convince them to leave, and we ended up staying until supper time.


Hubby told me the secret of the skimboard is to DRAG the girl, not run alongside. So I tried that and we had a couple of really good runs. Thing 1 even put on her wetsuit and boogie boarded. It was awfully cute to have the dog running out to see what she was doing, though she bumped into him more than once.


Skimboarding

Thing 2 refused to boogie board, despite having loved it in Oceanside. Oh well, she was very happy playing in the sand, and being dragged along the beach on the skim board.

We didn't get as much packing in on Friday as I'd have liked, TRANSLATE: NONE so we didn't get packed up and on the road as early as I'd have liked on Saturday. It was closer to 11:30 than to the 10:00 am I'd hoped. But it was a miracle we got everything into the car, and those kind of miracles take a little time.

The drive home was mostly uneventful. We stopped for gas 3 times, once for a meal, and once when the dog barked to let him do his thang in the bushes. What the Garmin indicated should have been a 12.5 hour driving trip, of course not calculating for gas, meals, and dogs, we did in just a little more than 12, including stops. Obviously we are a couple of leadfoots. The last half hour or so, from midnight on, the dog was obviously getting restless and started messing with the stuff he could reach in the back. I knew it probably wasn't good, but we just pushed through. When we finally pulled into the garage and let him out we found he'd gotten into the board games, and had chewed through a couple corners of the "Carcassone" game box. Repairable, but annoying.

Turns out the dog was pretty sick. He threw up shortly after we got home, and then barked a couple times in the middle of the night to be let out to throw up some more, and to trot around the yard with the trots. While it was mildly annoying to be up and down letting him out at 2:00 am, and again at 4:00 am, it's sure a lot less annoying than cleaning lots of vomit and doggy diarrhea off the kitchen floor in the morning. He came through smelling like a - well, not a rose, but he proved himself a great traveler, whether he likes it or not.

Back to the Beach

Today we decided to try tide pooling.  A cove just up the beach from the dog beach was supposed to have good tide pooling.  So we loaded up our stuff, locked the dog in the house, and walked to the cove.  It's a little further away, but not any longer than our daily walk to school, so it was fine.  Turns out there's no tide pooling there, but it's a nice beach set back in a cove with high walls.  There were more people, and it's much smaller than the dog beach, but seemed there was enough room.  Just no tide pooling at all.  I asked the kids do you want to go back and put on your suits and come back to this beach, or go to the dog beach with Kelso?  Thing 2 voted dog beach.  Thing 1 was frustrated with having walked to this beach and having no tide pooling, she got crabby and didn't want to go to the beach at all.  She wanted to go tide pooling (sorry, no car, sweetheart).  Then she wanted to go back and play at the house.  Sorry sweetheart, I didn't drive you all this way to sit inside and watch you do exactly what you do at home.  My vote counts for two, so that's three against one.  The dog gets a half vote, I know he'd rather go to the beach.  Three and a half against one.
So that's what we did.  I dragged Thing 1, with the threat that if she stayed back at the house by herself she might have to let the landlady in with a repairman to fix the dishwasher (which isn't working).  As I suspected, that was unappealing enough to get her out of the house.  
When we got out to the beach, it was beautiful.  Hardly any wind, much warmer than yesterday.  It was a little more crowded, but still not many people.  And the side we go to has fewer dogs than the other side.  It might not give Kelso as many puppies to play with, but it has fewer dogs galloping through our sand sculptures.
The dog had a grand time, we were out there for over three hours.  It was lovely.

For some reason Thing 1 loves to cover herself with wet sand and then dance around roaring, as a sand monster.


Thing 2 loves hunting for shells.


I thought collies in general don't like water, but Kelso was running into the waves up to his chest along with the girls. It didn't seem to bother him.


It was great to have all my charges happily playing in the sand.

So.  A funny thing.  In talking to my mother earlier in the week she reminds me I have a cousin and his family who live out here.  They've moved around a little and I lost track of where they are.  Turns out he's in San Jose.  I called to see if they want to do something while we're here, and his wife says she was planning on bringing their daughters - roughly the age of my kids - to Santa Cruz anyway.  And it so happens my cousin's mom, one of my favorite aunts, is visiting from Texas.  So they're all coming out tomorrow.  Kind of a mini family reunion!

Spring Break!

Breakfast/Lunch with Jaymes and his family went spectacular, I think.  They are absolutely delightful, and I wish we lived closer.  Their son got along swimmingly with Thing 1 and Thing 2, and they mostly kept out of our hair while we talked.  I like Jaymes' wife a lot, he certainly found a girl who deserves him!  They have an aging Rhodesian Ridgeback, so she and I talked dogs for a while.  She brought easter baskets for the girls, with some of the best battery operated bubble blowers I've seen in years for all the kids.  The only down side was it was raining cats and dogs most of the afternoon.  Hubby's quiche was delicious, the kids wolfed down his french toast, and everyone had a great time. Jaymes' wife brought an Easter basket for each of the kids, with the most amazing battery operated bubble makers in them. We sent the kids on the porch to play and I looked up to see the patio chock full of bubbles. Of course, when I went out with the camera, the bubble making slowed down. Why is that?

Thing 2 used her bubble maker like a weapon.


Thing 1 and Duncan were less intense about their bubbles.

Monday hubby wasn't going to the client, so we went to the Monterrey aquarium.  Again, a wonderful time.  The kids freaked over the seahorse exhibit, the hands-on exhibits, and the million gallon tank.  Well, they were pretty excited about everything.

The touch pools were great, though Thing 1 was reluctant to put her hand in there at first.

Thing 2 befriended a giant penguin.


Believe it or not that is a seahorse, one of the two really unusual ones in the exhibit. The other one was so weird it was hard to photograph. This is a Leaf Seahorse.


We weren't sure what to do with the dog, and were worried he might get destructive if we left him alone inside, or bark too much if we left him outside.  So we decided to take him, park in the shade, crack the windows, and leave him in the car. He did beautifully.  He hung out in the car while we were in the aquarium, and did just fine.  He didn't even kick over the water bowl I left for him.
It turns out, of all the beaches we're walking distance away from, we're next to the only off leash dog beach in Santa Cruz.  Fancy that!  Yesterday (Tuesday) Hubby worked so I waited for it to warm up a little and the tide to go out, then I took the girls and the dog to the beach.  The dog loved it, the girls not so much.  The problem was it was cold, and there was a gale force wind blowing for most of the time.  The sand is nice, the shore is nice with no drop-offs lurking beneath the surface that I could find, just a hundred yards of inch deep water after each wave.  The girls lasted about an hour and a half.  Thing 1 got sand in her eyes, and that was it for her.  Not that I blame her.  The girls were kind of disappointed, the beach was more of an endurance test than a real fun time.

Santa Cruz via Lovelock and San Francisco

Hubby got stuck in traffic on his way to the airport on Thursday and missed his plane home, so he didn't get home until 11:00 am on Friday.  The things he was going to do Friday morning for the client in San Jose got bumped to Friday afternoon, so we got out of town a couple hours later than I'd hoped.

The pet friendly hotel in Lovelock Nevada worked out just fine.  Kelso was a perfect gentlemen and handled his first night in a hotel room just fine.  He heard someone outside at 6:00 a.m. and started woofing and sat by the door, which resulted in an early morning walk with me and him.  It's hard to argue with him, knowing that he can win at any time by peeing on the floor.
We stopped downtown to check out the locks of Lovelock... it's interesting. I saw locks all over the chains around the Pont de Vechio in Florence, but Hubby doesn't remember.

We didn't even give the dog another doggy drug on the way west.  He did fabulous, only barking to be let out once. (We dove for the next exit with no concern about whether or not it would be easy to get back on the freeway.  It wasn't easy; thank heaven for Garmin.)  We had eaten a nice big breakfast in Lovelock so we ate some of the snacks I'd brought in the car, and pushed through lunch with only the one dog stop, and a gas stop. (Again diving for a gas station that the Garmin said was close, only to find it was a 15 minute terribly-narrow-twisting drive through a Sausilito neighborhood.  Curse Garmin!)  We took a detour over through San Francisco to show the kids the Golden Gate Bridge, and to point out that Hubby and I lived near there (in Alameda) right before Thing 1 was born.  The kids seemed appropriately interested in the bridge, mostly because it's featured in the Monsters Vs Aliens movie, but they were completely thumbs down on stopping.  They just wanted to press on to the beach house.
We drove down Highway 1, gambling the traffic wouldn't be too bad on a weekend.  It wasn't.  We had a lovely drive along the coast, and were able to zip along pretty quick.
The house I rented in Santa Cruz I chose for its proximity to the beach, number of bedrooms, and pet friendliness.  It is a nice place, the third bedroom was quickly taken over by the girls for their playroom, and there is quite a bit of space.  This is a shot of the girls in the 3rd bedroom, playing in the loft above the bed.


Though it is roomy, fairly well equipped, and nicely decorated, it is still a rental, and it has little annoying features of a rental that a "lived in home" would not.  Such as there are two 24 inch TVs in on the floor of the master bedroom closet taking up all the room on one side, and a huge box for the flatscreen TV on the other side.  Neither of the two smaller bedrooms  has a dresser, just beds and a closet with a few hangers in them.  The shelves above the hangers in the closet have extra bedding and old (broken?) stereo equipment on them, with more boxes from other electronic equipment.  There was a very thin metal rod propped precariously above the bathtub in the master bath with a heavy cloth curtain draped over it in a kind of wad.  This is not a shower curtain, it's the decorative one you'd hang outside of a shower.  It's much too heavy for the rod it's hanging on... that arrangement I quickly took down, but it means the master shower doesn't have a curtain.  It's less of a problem because the shower head is on a swivel cable and doesn't attach to the wall
There are a few other things, but it's not making for interesting reading; I'm just whining.
It's quite a nice place all in all, more open space than we have at our house, and there is a master bath which we don't have at our house - though with the hand held showerhead in the master bath, I expect Hubby and I will shower in the hall bathroom, the kids will be (and currently are) bathing in the master.
The beach is about half a block away.  We'll have to walk down there and check it out, we were sort of occupied last night with unloading the car and getting dinner (us) and exploring the condo (the kids and the dog). Here's the dog enjoying the patio.

We did have a good egg hunt this morning.  The girls were thrilled with the stuff they found, and were very happy the rabbit found them.
They weren't the only ones thrilled with their find - I had left the dog's bowl of food out and it was covered in ants this morning.  He doesn't eat nearly what the package recommends as a normal serving size for his age and weight so I've taken to leaving it out so he can eat what he wants. Not so around here.   I go over and wipe the ants off the wall with a wet paper towel every half hour or so, leaving some broken ant bodies behind as a warning to their comrades.

We invited a good friend of mine from bygone years up for breakfast.  Jaymes and his wife and son live in San Jose, and they're coming over in a couple of hours.  Hubby's napping on the couch, and I should get up and get going.  Since yesterday the only grocery stores Hubby could find were all organic and healthy (fabulous food, but no Skittles or Apple Jacks) I think we may have to try and find an open grocery store (is anyone closed on Easter morning?), it's hard to know everything the place is missing until you've had at least one meal here, and there are no quiche pans.

Back to California

Hubby had carefully reserved the week of the girls' spring break to be playing with us, or at least working from the house, but something happened and it ends up he's going to be in San Jose for three days that week.
He spends so much time away, it doesn't make sense for us to sit home doing nothing while he's in San Jose.  So we decided to join him.  The problem is there's not much in San Jose.   We saw that Santa Cruz is the nearest beach community.  The guys he'll be working with told him it's about a 45 minute to Santa Cruz, maybe an hour in traffic.
He offered to commute from Santa Cruz.  We'd find a rental on the beach.  For the three days of the week he'd be working, we'll be hanging out and playing in the sand.  The other days he'd be with us.
The girls are not happy about spending Easter morning somewhere other than our house.  This will be the 2nd year in a row we've done that.  But I don't see any other way around it.  The Rabbit will find us, he's a smart little rodent.  Thing 1 has already started pondering her letter to the Easter Bunny, and I know she'll be expecting a return letter.  She's already seen how happy Santa and the Leprechauns are to write back to her.  Just how literate is the Easter Bunny, anyway?  What kind of correspondent?  A full chatty letter, or just an inky paw print?  Hmmmmm....
It took me about three days of looking, but I just found a place that was available and seems to fit the bill, and only cost one arm and leg.  It's hard to tell exactly what we're getting from the cryptic photos and the real estatey blurbs (Cozy = Tiny... Quaint = Decorated in the 60s.... Close to beach = 5 blocks away... etc) but we can bring the dog and when I google mapped it it is about 3 houses away from the beach.  Also it was a couple hundred dollars  cheaper than some of the other places we were looking at, and has a roof top patio to watch the sunset from.

This is the rooftop with accompanying view.  

This is the back deck.  It faces West so the sunset view should be nice.

This is the beach access three houses away.  
The only thing missing is a private hot tub.  The girls would have liked that.  But the trade off is they get to bring the dog.  Now we just have to figure out how to put him, and everything else, in the car for the 13 hour drive.  Holy Dorrito, did hubby and I just commit to driving 13 hours with two kids and a dog?  Hmmm... that will be the hard part.  We'll take two days to drive over, but we may have to pull a heinous all day trip back.


The dog is not overly fond of the car and I don't know how he'll do.  He still can't get into the car without the ramp.  Yes, Kelso is such a wuss that he can't jump into the car.  He has tried, but his front half ends up in the car while his back end is still on the ground, which he seems to find embarrassing.  It is quite a ways up there, and he is only 7 months old.  He can jump out, but hasn't mastered the in part. 

This is a picture of the same ramp we have, though those are not our dogs...  The ramp folds in half, weighs about 20 pounds, is about 3.5 feet long and 6 inches thick when folded in half.   Waaaaayy too big to take on this trip.


I heard that a bit of Dramamine will knock out a dog for a while.  I think I'll be talking to the vet about that and some sunscreen for his nose.  I hear collies are susceptible to nose sunburn with that big ol schnoz sticking out there.