Last But Not Least: The OCEAN!

July 12th: We woke up early the final morning to get the hotel cleaned and our bags packed, as we had to check out at 10am.  We really loved this resort, and will return to it at some point down the road.  I purposefully packed all of our beach stuff, extra clothes and lunch stuff so we could do the beach easily.  Thank goodness I did because we had to park quite a ways away from the shoreline at Oceanside Beach!  Once we got to the beach though, it was easy to set up camp, get lunch out to the kids, and just enjoy the sun, sand, and water.  

The kids were somewhat tentative about getting in the water at first.  Jordan was the first to really venture out, of course! Sara and James quickly followed, and JD and Karianna did, though with less enthusiasm.  Jackson didn't care for getting wet, though he was intrigued with all the sand!  I'll just let the pictures do the talking.....

Both Sara and James collected quite a few sea shells, and all the kids took turns packing the buckets with sand.

Getting braver!

Love this picture-I really do love the ocean!

Oh, look-JD finally joined in!

After playing in the surf for a while, we went to hike the tidal pools just past the pier.  We saw lots of crabs and little fish trapped in the pools.  This was such a neat area to explore-more pics down below...

The power of my camera's self-timer!  Works even while balanced on an uneven rock! Clicking the button and then running to be in this picture proved tricky, but I managed!

Joy!

This is Karianna's famous pose-she does it all the time, and if you ask her, she will tell you this is not her best pose.  I personally think it is perfect!

Trying to get the sand off-never-ending battle, bud!

And with one final look out to the ocean, we packed up and headed back to the car around 3 to make the drive home.  I was sad to leave.  I get so attached to the ocean for some reason, and I was admittedly quiet as we headed back to the car.....I would have stayed all day. But we knew we needed to get back to Mesa at a decent time, so we had to take off.

We made one stop after passing into AZ to get gas and some ice cream at Dairy Queen for the kids. They all slept a good chunk of the way and spent the rest of the time listening to The Garden and our mix CDs.  We pulled into home and you could tell everyone was glad to be there-it didn't take long to unload everything, grab a quick dinner, and head to bed.

I am sad our vacation is over for several reasons, but mostly because we built such great memories as a family....I didn't want that to stop!  Experiences like this make me sit back and realize we can make these types of memories regardless of where we are at-we just have to take the time to enjoy our families and not get caught up in the daily grind of having a big family, keeping the house clean, and working full time.  With a great vacation comes a new goal to strengthen our family dynamic and continue enjoying each other and our time together.  We certainly don't have to wait for next summer's vacation to do that! :)

Farewell, CA!