Beach adventure yesterday . . .

It was such a perfect day yesterday.

Here is one of my best friends, Jolene and I walking on the beach. Me in my rubber boots (that I remembered this time). She's an itty bitty little thing. She's not even 5' 4" and maybe 100 lbs. I am almost 5'9" and 160something pounds. I feel like a giant around her in size but then she is the most caring loving person I have ever met and I feel very small (in a good way) around her. She lives life big in her loving ways and I want to grow as big as she is.



This is another of my best friends, Oz and I walking. Actually Oz and Jolene are my kids godparents. They are part of the family. They are the most like us couple we have ever met and we so enjoy being around them. Look at Oz wearing a sweatshirt for my daughter's old soccer team. I love them both so much. We had fun leaving funny foot prints in the sand (I tried to hop on one foot so someone would think there was a one legged person and then tried walking on my heals with no toe prints and hubby walked in some twisted way forever so that his footprints looked backwards) and watched the dolphins jump and play in the distance.



So, we went to one of my best sea glass beaches first and found a little. Did I think to have hubby take a picture of that? No. I wasn't thinking of blog pictures. I was in my other world, relaxed, happy with friends that make me giggle and let go for awhile.

We left the first beach in search of another sea glass hot spot and ended up at Rincon beach near Carpenteria, not far from Santa Barbara. We saw so many interesting things here. First, we saw a lady with a parrot like bird on her shoulder which was particularly funny because Jolene just seems to attract people with parrots on their shoulders. It's a long story but we had to hold in the snickers as we passed by the unsuspecting lady. Then, we walked to an overlook to see if the beach would have the necessary little rock piles in which one finds sea glass. The tides change the beaches here day to day. One day there will be rocks and glass and another there isn't a speck of anything to find on the sand. As we surveyed the beach below (FAR below, it was at least 60 feet my hubby says - seemed like 300 to me) we saw the most wonderful joyous lady dancing down the beach. I mean dancing like you've never seen anyone dance before. You know that saying, dance like nobody's watching? She was. She did the moon walk, the running man, twirls and spins and pow wow rain dances and funky gruntal moves. It was quite a show. We couldn't help but laugh out loud but maybe out of "you go girl" more than anything else. As we stood over the empty beach watching the pelicans dive someone came up and asked if we had seen the seals and their babies and we couldn't see any from where we were. So, we walked a bit further along the cliff until we arrived at the birthing beach. And there they were! Seals galore!



On the walk back to the car, Ozzy spied a gopher snake meandering along. It just need a little pettin', so he caught it and we did. We let it go on its meandering in just a minute or two.



Right where we parked was this inticing hot dog stand. The dinner of champions. We ate THE best hot dogs ever - 6 of us for less than $15 drinks included. It was perfect.



In the picture below is my daughter's boyfriend, Travis, then my daughter, Lauren, me (with eyes closed I might add), Jolene and Oz.



From here we went to Oz and Jolene's and laughed at hilarious stuff on youtube and then watched Oz's skydiving video again and said our goodbyes. It was a great day and I needed it - so happy and relaxed. Kent took some pictures of the kids walking and skim boarding but for some reason they will not upload.

I said I would post a picture of Lauren before her dance. Here's the only picture I could get to work. Something about my husband's camera and trying to post its pictures makes everything go haywire - the pix come out all neon. So here's the only one I could get to work. (notice the old picture in the background, Susan of Broken Heart Art)



Yep. She's 5'4" and he's 6'4". He's 16 and she's 15, both soccer players. They're so funny and cute together, always fun to have around. Ah, youth.

Today was so-so. Got chores done around the house. Spent many hours catching up on everyone's flickr's and blogs - the highlight of the day with so many pretty things to look at! Left a lipstick tube in my jeans in the dryer and ruined a load of clothes (tried everything - Dawn worked the best and saved a few pieces, 4 shirts have to be trashed). By the way, loved the laundry advice you all left me - underwear inside out and spray febreeze on everybody. You're so funny! And all I have to say is . . . Okay, AFTER you've done that a few times you have to eventually wash SOMETHING! (preferrably with empty pockets) The stupid thing is, I hardly ever ever wear lipstick let alone leave it my jeans.