A California Christmas!

Most of you were probably building snowmen, drinking hot chocolate, and making snow ice cream while we here in Cali were putting lights in our palm trees and visiting the beach... I have to say while I love visiting my mom and enjoying the beauty of a fresh white snow but I always love coming home to the WARM sunshine! I love living in southern California... we have been here for about the last 23 years. I LOVE the beach... the sand between my toes, the cool water, the warm sun on my face, the breeze thru my hair wading in the water and picking up pretty seashells, making sandcastles, sitting in the sand and watching the sun go down... oh yeah, I LOVE the beach! (I have to say my favorite trip ever was to Maui... and going snorkeling and swimming with the awesome sea life!)

The boys love going to the beach in the winter and looking in the tide pools for various sea life. It pretty much has become a tradition every Christmas. They miss the beach while living in the snow while they are off at school.... So on Monday Dec 28th we headed out to the beach to see what we could find!

Here are some beautiful shots of the ocean/beach that we took!

And here are some of the very cool animals that they found! These little guys are Brittle Starfish, I have to tell you it felt like a spider crawling on my hand... they are fearless, I thought it was going to crawl right off my hand and fall to the sand below! It really tickles when you hold them!

Devin searching the tide pools...

Doesn't this look cool? We saw sea slugs, sea urchins, starfish of different colors, a few octopi....it was so fun!

Dallin bringing up a starfish for me to hold...

Cool, huh?

Here the guys had found a very large octopus but he didn't want them to get him, he hid further under the big rock, they tried to move it but it was way too heavy, Devin had a hold of one of his arms but it was VERY strong, Devin's arm was shaking as he was trying to pull it up for everyone to see, at one point the octopus was able to bring Devin's hand to his beak and bit him! (just the tip of his finger) They found a tiny tiny octopus but I guess I didn't get a picture :(

This little guy looked hard but he was quite mushy, lol...

My climber boy, Chadman...

Diana soaking up some rays! It was a gorgeous day, about °74! We had to shed our sweatshirts! What a beautiful day!

We even saw a Sea Lion who was waiting for the tide to come back in to take him away...

Goodbye for today...

After we left we went to Togo's for lunch... what a wonderful time we had! There is just nothing like being with family and enjoying the sunshine!