Last Weekend of Summer and first day of school

All summer as we have had fun plans to go skating or to the beach or something and Jeff would say "have fun" and wistfully head to work.

 

Summer really isn't summer for full time working folk, not like it is for kids out of school. So I suggested that Jeff take a day off work before the kids went back to school to enjoy summer with us.

 

Sooo Jeff took off the last Friday before school and did some summer stuff with us.

 

We drove to Laguna Beach in the morning and just waited until we found a good beach that wasn't too far from parking and looked good.

 

 

 

It was a beautiful day but the water was still cold. Taylor was the only one to go all the way into it.

 

That's Ok they had fun playing football, enjoying the beach and enjoying time together.

 

We even found a really good pizza by the slice place to grab lunch to eat on the beach.

 

 

After we ate we pulled out the cards and Taylor taught us how to play scum. The object of the game is to get rid of your cards and the first people to do it get an advantage on the next round. We amused the couple next to us when Jeff and Taylor started getting "spirited" about the game. It was all in good fun though and we laughed about it with our beach neighbors later.

 

 

 

Done with the beach we went to the hotel we booked through Hotwire and swam at the pool. The pool was shady and cool so I just watched the swimming and enjoyed my book.

 

When we looked at hotels in the area they were all $250+ we ended up getting ours for $94 dollars with free breakfast and parking through hotwire. Sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a rest we went back to the Laguna area and checked out some tidepools during low tide. 

 

 

Ashley loved touching the sea anemones and making them close.

 

 

There were a lot of huge starfish, sea anemones, sea urchins fish and crab.

(There is a red starfish in the middle of the picture.)

 

 

 

Climbing up the rocks was almost as much fun as looking at the wildlife.

 

 

Taylor liked trying his rock climbing skills on the sandstone but he realized how it's not very easy when rocks are likely to pull away from the wall as you're climbing.

 

 

 

 

 

All of them wanted to try it.

 

 

 

 

 

After awhile it started getting late and we were ready for dinner.

 

 

 

We found a place called Tommy Bahamas to eat at (I thought it was only a store)

 

The food was really good! The only person that wasn't impressed was Taylor, he said his ribs were kind of burnt. Jeff mentioned it too the waitress when she asked how the food was but we said not to worry about it because he still ate them.

 

 

When we were ready to leave they gave us a free piece of cake! Taylor said it was worth the burned ribs.

 

That night we tried to stay up for the grunion run that was supposed to be happening. We hung out in the hotel room playing more cards until midnight and then we headed to the beach again with tales of grunions to the kids. We didn't see anything and the kids weren't willing to hang out more than 15 to 20 minutes. Oh well we went back to the hotel room and we showed them a you-tube video of what they look like, I guess that would have to do.

 

 

 

The next day we had the annual Little People of America beach party at Doheney beach.

 

Jeff volunteered to grill some burgers...he seems to do that often when a barbeque happens. He doesn't like to sit around so he's good about getting up and helping.

 

 

 

 

 

Our kids had fun because there were other teenagers there and yet it wasn't too big of a group. They played football, smashball and soccer. Here they are playing water balloon toss.

Jacob was partners with one of his favorite boys named Peter.

 

 

Peter is the only little person in his family and he always asks his parents if his buddy Jeff will be at the parties. Jeff took him to the water, played football and water balloon toss with him and I'm sure some candy giving was involved too at some point.

 

 

After the water balloon toss it was a free for all fight.

 

 

 

Here was most of the bigger kid group that had fun on the beach. I knew they were having fun when the party was winding down but they weren't ready to go yet.

 

 

 

 

After the get together we came back and got ready just in time to meet up with Cheri and Ryan and the girls to go for dinner. We went to a place called the Seafire Grill next to the San Clemente pier. We ate on the patio which was perfect because the night was nice and the girls could wander a bit.

 

 

 

After dinner we went walking...

 

 

to the pier. We enjoyed talking with Cheri and Ryan. The boys most especially enjoyed them telling about their skydiving experience.

 

 

 

They ended the night with ice-cream

 

 

 

 

and hugs goodbye.

 

 

 

 

On the way back home we hit a local ward down by the beach (with an 11 oclock start time) and then took a detour to mission San Jaun Capistrano. Taylor and Jeff hadn't been there before.

 

 

 

 

 

The camera died so I only got a couple of pictures. I always love the gardens and the history. Here is the ruins of the chapel that came down in one of California's earthquakes.

 

The kids didn't investigate as much as we did and they didn't make use of the audio tour like Jeff thought they would but we were still happy we went. I think their favorite thing was feeding the coy fish. ;)

 

Then it was time to get back home and get ready for the first day of school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are the kids on the first day of school. Not the best pictures but at least I got them.

 

Taylor going to 12th grade.

 

Last year of high school!!

 

 

 

 

Jacob is in 10th grade!!!

 

 

 

This year Taylor is driving himself and Jacob to school in the morning. At least for one year we don't have to have a carpool. Buy guys.

 

 

 

Ashley going to 6th grade. Her last year of elementary school!

 

(We ended up not being able to find a rolling backpack in stores this year so we ended up having to buy on on-line.

 

 

They all had a good day and came home with their big lists of school supplies that they need

(that of course were not the ones that I bought on the first round of school supply shopping)