California Road-Trip 2013: Two

We drove out to the California coast on Sunday evening to stay with the Lewis family, my sister, for a few days.  Together, hooray!  The boys had been so stoked to meet Kai, and I couldn't wait to snuggle that baby again and be with my sis.  We think Jason's pretty darn cool too, which is evidenced by the boys constant exclamations of "Uncle Jason!  Come see this!"  :)  The boys were in love with Kai almost instantly.  Kai does have that affect!

The rest of our days in Laguna were spent either in Leah and Jason's apartment complex pool, or down by the beach.  My parents joined us Monday night which made it all feel complete.  The weather was lovely, no rain this time, and temperatures were in the low 70's.  Not that cold would have kept my boys from the water, as the ocean temperatures were still too chilly for some (me!), but knowing they would emerge from the ocean to lay on the sun-warmed sand only boosted their desire to swim, splash and boogie board.  We had to pick up some {more} buckets and shovels, and our 7th and 8th pair of water wings (!!) because I can't ever seem to remember to pack that stuff.  When he came home from work before the second day of our beachy adventures, Jason brought each of the boys a monster truck.  Those trucks put on a lot of beach miles, you can be sure!

We had talked of visiting one theme park or another, but with my grandma's passing in February, we had a couple of memorials that required us to be places at certain times.  I was a little sad we weren't going to get to Disney this trip, I love me some Disneyland, but to my surprise and pleasure, we didn't miss the park visit at all!  I was sure we would, but the pools and beaches were enough.  On Tuesday, my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ed joined us for a beautiful beach memorial for Tutu, just down the road aways from where she lived for a good portion of her life.  It was a lovely, perfect memorial, remembering the extraordinary life of my beautiful grandmother.

The morning we were to head back to the desert we stopped by the beach for one more peek at the ocean.  My parents had been there ahead of us and watched a sick seal make its way from the water to the parking lot of the beach.  Seal Rescue was called and they came to get the sweet, sad seal for rehabilitation.  They told my parents that for unknown reasons, more seals than usual have been leaving the sea and are found, sick and in need of care.  Sad, and scary too!

After watching the seal rescue and shooby doobying down to Ruby's for some burgers, a McKenzie family So. Cal. beach visit tradition, we hopped in the car and drove back to Rancho Mirage.