First Trip to the Beach

After our trip to Utah, Emilee and I drove down to San Clemente, California with Chris's family.  Chris flew in and met us there.  The family rents out a house near the beach every year and everyone who can go piles in.  This year we were only missing Dave.  We got there on Saturday and spent the remainder of the day settling in.  On Sunday morning when Emilee woke us up early, Chris, Emilee and I walked down the hill to the beach.  We didn't get into the water yet, but Emilee put her toes in the sand.

Emilee got to spend some quality time with her great-grandma Hunsaker while on this trip.

Emilee with Great-Grandma Hunsaker

After lunch the family loaded up and headed to the beach for the first time.  Chris's mom has said for months that Emilee won't like the water because it is so cold.  That it will be a few years before she enjoys the water, so we weren't expecting much.  But she loved it.  She kicked her feet and splashed.  Even just watching the waves coming in from our arms got her excited.  She also loved the sand. It was a great start to spending a week at the beach.

We pretty much did the same stuff every day all week long. We'd get up early in the morning and be at the beach by 9 a.m.  Ride the waves all morning until 1 or 2.  Then head back to the beach house for a restful afternoon and then dinner and hanging out all night.
Chris road the waves on his boogie board, along with the rest of the family. I got out there when grandma was willing to watch Emilee, but she likes to ride the waves too and I didn't want to make her babysit the whole time.

Emilee would take a short morning nap on the beach.  She will sleep anywhere, but still sleeps the best in a bed.  When she is out of a bed she usually only sleeps 30 minutes.

Emilee played in the waves for at least a few minutes each day.  She loves water and I wish she could have spent more time in water that didn't have waves.  But she loved spending some time in the water each day.

Emilee and her cousin, Lisana, had matching swimsuits thanks to Grandma Hunsaker.

Emilee spent a good portion of her time on the beach crawling around in the sand.  She was good about not eating just the sand, but anything else she found was fair game.  Usually it was seaweed pods.  I guess it can't be too bad when people eat them with meals, right?

Having a baby crawling in sand is great fun.  They get sand in places no one should have to deal with sand.  But it didn't seem to bother Emilee one bit.

On our last evening there the family walked down to the beach to watch the sunset.  It was a gorgeous sunset and we got some great pictures with the family and without the family.  We love going to Southern California each summer and plan to keep going as long as we can.

We flew home out of San Diego and since we have to check out of the house on Saturday we decided that we would fly home Sunday and spend that last day with just our little family in San Diego.  We stopped to see the San Diego temple.  It is such an incredible beautiful temple.  There were quite a lot of people there due to the weddings going on.  But it was beautiful all the same.

We also went over to Coronado Island and Emilee played on the swings in a park there.  Then we went to Balboa park, but by the time we got there everything was pretty much closing down for the day.  We should have gone there first.  Maybe next year.  I think next year we'll pay the ridiculous price to go to the zoo- Emilee should love it at that age.

It was a good trip and we enjoyed spending time together with family at the beach.  We love the beach and dream of living closer to a nice beach on day.  Our dream would be to live in southern California.  Maybe one day....