The Beach

We kind of have a tradition of taking the kids on a mini vacation during thanksgiving week. We like to go Monday/Tuesday while most people are still working. I approached Jared with this last week, and my thought was, "let's take the kids to the beach." (I love the beach. I'm pretty sure it's not a vacation if there is no beach involved.) Jared's idea was "let's take the kids to the mountains." We live in California, so we decided to do both, as well as visit my sister in Ukiah. All those goals in a short time made for a lot of time in the car...

So, since Jared insisted that we NOT go straight to Ukiah and head to her local beach, but first go south to San Francisco so we could then drive back up the coast (I know, I thought it was crazy, but, whatever) we left the house at 8:30 in the morning and didn't get to the beach until 3:00. We made a LOT of stops, and had to nurse the baby almost every time. The most hilarious one was the first one we made... we hadn't had breakfast yet, so we stopped for 45 minutes to eat and feed the baby before we even got on the freeway. Then, as we were getting on the freeway, we realized we only had about 1/3 of a tank of gas, so we stopped AGAIN 45 mintues later. Then, driving through San Francisco, we found the most country like place (a huge green belt with a playground) to stop. Apparently we're not city folk.

Anyways, we finally made it to the beach, and it was beautiful. Worth the drive.

Isn't she pretty? She's at a kind of (ok, REALLY) annoying age, but when I look at her I still think she's just a pretty girl.

And the boys... yup, they were once again not allowed to wear pants at the beach. It's just safer that way.
Sam and his sand angel.

This was Ruby's first beach trip. She spent the first half doing her favorite activity...
then the rest of the time wondering why there was so much wind.
The saturday before we were to leave, I asked Jared if we were really going to the beach, because I said if we were that I was going to buy a tripod at target. He looked at me for a minute, sighed, then admitted that he'd had one in the trunk of his car for a month to give me for christmas. So, we brought it, and I was able to use my remote to get us some family pictures on the beach:)
Us. On a side note, I decided that this is going to be my weight watchers before picture. I've been going for a little over a month now (lost 8 pounds, wahooo!) and still haven't taken a picture. This one is good... you can see my body but I don't look all miserable to be fat. We'll check in again in another 45 pounds or so...
The beach was fun. More about our trip to the mountains later:)