Life's a beach

Life's a beach

Last Saturday, we went to Laguna Beach to meet up with some of our friends. It was about an hour's drive from the house. We arrived there at around 2 pm, I think. Oo, kainitan ng araw! Hahaha...but what choice did we have right? Looking for a parking spot was awful! Since it was the middle of the day already, all the available spots near the beach were taken already and no one was leaving just yet of course. So, as we were driving around the area looking for a parking spot, we got to see the neighborhood. Such beautiful homes. Made me wonder how much the homes there were. I'm betting that they are at least in the $2M, don't you think? Such prime property! We saw that some homes had "Rent Me" signs in their front yards. I wonder if people actually live there or are these primarily rental and vacation properties. Can there be Orlando rental home that are not part of a chain too? I wonder if there can be considerable savings if you were to deal with individual homeowners putting up their homes for summer rental compared to homes that are managed by rental chains. That's something I can look into when we plan our vacation next time. Anyway, there were some available spots on the neighborhood streets but they were too far now for us to walk. Well, it would have been okay if we did not have to lug down all our stuff. We had a rolling cooler that held our drinks and snacks. We also had another cooler tote that held the warm chicken I made for a late lunch. Plus the beach umbrella, the 2 bags of change of clothes and diapers, their beach toys...let's just say we had A LOT!!! We found a closer parking spot behind a bike shop that was charging $10 for a whole day. Normally, we would balk at paying that amount for a parking spot but considering the stuff we had to take and that the kids were starting to get antsy from driving around while looking at the great blue ocean before them, we decided that we could part with $10! Hehehe...
The Santiago's and Salvador's came shortly after we had set up "camp". We had our late lunch. Would you believe that they brought spaghetti? Kaldero and all! Hahaha... It would not have been my choice of food to take to a beach picnic. Well, different strokes for different folks!
We let the kids just play. The water was cold though. The sun was hot but it wasn't enough to warm the cold ocean water.
It was a really nice afternoon of hanging out and chitchat and sand play and wading... We decided to start packing it up when the tide was starting to come in - maybe around 7 pm. The sun hadn't set yet so we still walked around the area a bit after the boys put all our gear into our vehicles. There were no showers nearby so we were all sandy still. I bet DH wished that we had like a waterproof truck bed liner so he could just hose down all the sand we trekked into the Armada. LOL!
The whole group then headed to In N Out for some burgers for dinner. By the time we headed home, it was past 9 pm already. And would you believe that the kids were still awake? Yup! We still were able to give them a shower that evening. We had to. We were all sticky and icky! We didn't have to force the kids to bed. As soon as their heads touched their pillows, they were out! Good thing too coz we were going to be out bright and early for Sunday mass and Disneyland the next day.
But that will be for another post!