Day at the Beach

Have you ever had one of those days, when it's over and you look back at everything, and you think to yourself "now that was a perfect day"?  Well we had one of those nearly a month ago when we enjoyed a day at the beach to celebrate Dave's birthday.  Despite the fact it wasn't a typically sunny summer day, we had the perfect day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

One of the bonanzas was despite the crazy traffic on the way down, we scored with some offsite discounted parking.  For those familiar with the Boardwalk it's rather congested when to get close where there's limited parking... and forget about trying to figure out the traffic when the lots are full.  We loved getting shuttled in rather than battling the lots.

Once we arrived we enjoyed a picnic lunch.

That was followed by some Beach Volleyball (the Olympics were going on the weekend we went and beach volleyball was one of Drew's favorite sports).

Not sure if you can see it but our "beach volleyball" was a small (and I mean small) inflatable ball.  It's sort of camouflage with the  building in the background.  Dave and Drew played this for a good 30 minutes.  I joined in after a bit - I was a bit sore from running 10 miles that morning preparing for a race.

After a bit we convinced Drew to check out the water...

 ... it was rather chilly.  We had a great time playing "chase" with the waves.

I love that look on Drew's face as he's running from the wave.

Then it's Mommy and Drew's turn to play "chase the wave".

And then Mommy thought it would be a great idea to take some pictures with a wave in the background...

...that is until the wave nailed me in the ass!  Mommy had to go back up to the blanket and try and dry off.

Once Dave and Drew had enough of the water we headed up to the Boardwalk and hit the rides.

 

While Drew had a blast on the kiddie rides Dave snuck in some of the "big kid" rides.  The Boardwalk was PACKED despite the overcast weather.    After hitting a few rides Drew and I made our way back to our blankets on the beach to wait for Daddy. 

Then the three of us played Frisbee for a good hour.  I have to hand it to our 4 year old - he is good at Frisbee!  I'm not sure if it was the kind of Frisbee we had or just his natural athletic ability - either way he was a lot of fun to play with.  After about an hour the skies unleashed and the rain that was holding off all day, came down.  So we packed it up and headed into the arcade - to use the tokens that came with our wristbands.

At 8pm we decided to call it a day and caught the shuttle back to the car and decided to find a local pizza joint where we could grab a bite to eat.  Drew stuffed his face then started falling asleep mid-bite.  We then laid him down where he snoozed until it was time to go.

As Dave and I drove home - we both reflected on our day saying it was the absolute best day.  One of those memorable quality family days you will look back on for years to come.  What made it extra great was we spent a whopping $26 dollars at the Boardwalk - $6 for parking and $20 for my ride tickets (Dave and Drew had wristbands). We didn't spend a nickle on food while we were there!

We're currently planning our next trip back to the Boardwalk before the "season" ends.