San Diego Here We Come

Ok, I admit it...  alright, it wasn't a secret...  I was not looking forward to camping on the beach.  I pretty much avoid camping.  I don't like sleeping anywhere except for my own bed and I really like to be clean. And I know this is weird, but I don't like to be wet either.   Don't get me wrong, I LOVE San Diego.  So no bed and lots of fine sand and water did not sound like a lot of fun to me.    All of that aside, there was no way that I was not going to go on this trip, my kids were SUPER MEGA CRAZY EXCITED!!!!  I have thought a lot about how little time we have left with our older boys at home,  especially after the church's announcement that young men can now go on missions at 18 instead of 19.  Sam is going to be 17 in December and is planning to turn in his papers as soon as he graduates from high school.  that is in just over a year and a half!  Yikes!

So we packed everything up.  Richard really did most of the packing and preparing.  He was amazing, I think that I was in denial that we were going.  The plus side of camping on the beach is that you are still in town and can get food or anything else you need easily.  So that made the packing a little lighter than "real" camping.   And the camp ground had bathrooms and showers as well as laundry facilities.

We camped with Richard's brothers, James, Jon and Steve and their families.  As an added bonus, my parents and sister Jessi and her girls were also in San Diego (in a HOTEL) for most of our trip too.  

Day #1

On the road

We hurried to get camp set up so the kids could have some time on the beach before dark.

The water was cold but everyone was in heaven.  

My family joined the Alger gang for the afternoon on the beach.  It was a little scary trying to keep track of all my kiddos in the ocean.  Luckily the little guys mostly stayed on the beach with me.

The little girls had a great time getting warm in the sand.  They were freezing, no fat on their bodies to keep them warm.  They also learned some lessons about beach sand, especially that it gets every where and does not come off easily.  They were happy to get showered before bed.

Daniel had fun climbing the bluff (the camp ground was up on the bluff) until we realized that you weren't supposed to climb it due to erosion.  

Laney and Susanna were wiped out pretty quickly and once we got most of the sand off and wrapped them up in dry towels they passed out.

Sam got some gorgeous sunset pictures.  This was one of my favorites.

It was fun to eat pizza around the campfire and catch up with the fam.  We don't get together with the Algers often enough. It was great to have the evenings to chat.

I slept in the van with the girls.  We used the benches as beds.  It wasn't awesome, but it was better than I thought.  Really, the humidity was the biggest adjustment for me, I just don't like to feel damp.  The kids slept great and thought the whole camping on the beach thing was amazing, so that made me happy.

  

 And thank you to Jon's wife Leilani for organizing the whole thing and asking us to go every year until she finally got us to go.  We are glad she did!