San Onofre

We didn't get up super early on Saturday, but when we did wake up Matt was anxious to get moving. We headed down for some breakfast where Ollie made some new friends. He's such a social little guy. While eating breakfast he stood up on his chair and kept checking out the baby at the table behind us, and started waving and saying hi to all the other kids. When we did get him to turn around and eat he was making all kinds of faces and laughing while putting his food on his fork before feeding himself. This got the attention of the older couple sitting nearby who were thoroughly entertained. When he realized he had an audience he started waving and saying hi and talking to them too! After breakfast we went back to the room and got ready for the beach. Yes, we left Ollie in his same clothes he wore all day yesterday- I guess that's what beach bums get to do right! He had fallen asleep in them and I didn't want to put him in his swim diaper until we got to the beach so he didn't get changed. He loved his little ride on the cooler on the way out!

 

After stopping to grab some food for lunch and some sand toys we made it to San Onofre a little after 10am. Unfortunately they had already closed the beach because it was full so we joined a big long line of other cars that were also waiting to get in. When a car would leave they would let one in.

 

Luckily it was Ollie's nap time so he slept through the wait and I was glad that he was getting some rest. Matt could have been upset that we didn't get there 3 hours earlier like he had wanted to, but he was a good sport too. No reason to ruin our day over it and he thought the line would move pretty fast. 45 minutes later we finally got in! Would have loved to hang out with our California friends while we were there but our last minute trip didn't work for anyone else's schedule so it was just the three of us. We got our spot all set up and Matt stayed for a few minutes to play with Ollie before heading in to surf.

Ollie was busy playing in the sand before I could even get him changed!

He has been to the beach before, but the last time was this same beach last October so I don't know how much he remembered it. He was so excited to see the surfers and kept pointing at them, and birds and every other little thing he discovered.

Matt heading out- we'll see him in a few hours!

 

After Matt was gone Ollie and I headed down to see what he thought of the water. I wasn't hoping for much, I hate the cold Pacific water myself- I can only get in with a wetsuit!

Poor kid, the waves scared him!

 

He wasn't a fan of the cold water either. I guess we'll have to wait till he's a little older!

 

He was a fan of the sand though and had a blast digging around in it. I started building a shark for him, but he thought it was funny to come and sit on the shark so I had to move him over and help him dig a hole. I showed him how to put water in his bucket and dump it in the hole and watch it disappear. He thought that was fun and even started to take his bucket down to get some water himself but soon I heard "help! help!" He gave me the bucket and laughed at me trying to catch water in it. I even fell down one time as I ran in trying not to get swallowed up in the waves, he thought that was extra funny!

 

Throwing sand was fun too!

 

We forgot his glasses so I let him use mine for a minute :)

 

Matt came in for a minute to eat some lunch. That gave me enough time to go and finish my shark so we could take a few pictures. Not exactly what the fin should look like, but it's kind of hard to do a fin with sand!

Ollie liked it once it was done, here he is giving his scary shark bite hands!

 

And then we got a few pictures with Daddee!

Matt tried taking him in the water too, he was a little better but still wasn't super excited about it. 

 

 We hung out for a bit watching all the surfers while we had lunch. There were two young boys out surfing with their Dad right in front of us. It really was the cutest thing and the boys were actually pretty good. Couldn't help but think this will be the sight I will see from the beach in a few more years when Matt is out there with his two boys teaching them to surf. Can't wait!

 

 

Matt headed back out for a few more hours while Ollie and I hung back and played. I tried to get him to take a nap, he really was tired. I laid down a towel in our shade and gave him his blanket and binky and he did lay down and even rubbed his eyes, but then he just got silly and wanted to play. I was practically falling asleep trying to get him to sleep, but he wasn't having that. He got on my back and started riding me like a horse bouncing up and down and laughing. The couple next to us got good laughs over it too. When I would turn over kicking him off, he would get up and point his little finger at me and then push me over till I was on my tummy again and would proceed to crawl on my back and bounce around all over again. When that wasn't enough he decided to pick up sand and pour it in my hair and in my ears. I have never been so sandy in my life! It started to become torture some. He was so funny but at the same time I was getting tired of the sand being EVERYWHERE! And any time I said "No" he got that little twinkle in his eye like it is so fun to be naughty and would proceed to do exactly what I told him not to- like dump sand inside the potato chip bag! His hands were covered in sand and he didn't like me wiping them off so he probably ate quite a bit of sand throughout the day. Even his drinks were hard to keep clean. Good times! That's about when I started noticing that Matt was still out surfing! I had told him the signal I was going to give him when it was time for him to come in, but there were so many surfers that I had no idea where he was so the signal was pointless. But he finally made his way in. I'm glad he got to surf and I did have fun, but by 5pm I was ready to retire from the beach! We got all packed up and somehow still made it to Noll Surfboards in San Clemente before it closed at 6pm. Ollie was asleep but we still went inside and Matt got to tour the gallery and check out where they shape the boards, etc.

The surfboard from the famous picture of Greg Noll on the beach in Hawaii...

 

We didn't leave without buying a new sweatshirt for Matt (Matt always calls sweatshirts "sweaters" I don't know why but it cracks me up.) Matt started talking to the kid that was checking us out and found out that he was James Noll, son of Jed Noll, and grandson of Greg Noll. He started asking him questions like what time they do the surfboard shaping so we could come and see it (usually Tuesday- Saturday 2-4pm). And then he went on to ask him if his Dad likes his name? Luckily he said "yes," I guess Matt just wanted to make sure that someone with that name actually likes it! He did go onto explain that we are naming our next son Jed and he thought that was pretty cool. After that we went and found somewhere to eat dinner. We ended up at a Thai place, the food was decent but they really didn't have anything for kids. They brought him a bowl of rice, and I was pretty proud of him for how much he actually got in his mouth. He is getting pretty good at feeding himself with a spoon.

 

After dinner we felt like some dessert. I tried using Yelp, and Siri, and Google Maps and had three failed attempts. We drove nearly 4 miles each time and ended up in business parks and residences. I think we were finding the corporate headquarters and not the actual cupcake or gelato shops. So disappointing! We finally found a cold stone creamery and settled for that, and picked up a few cupcakes at a bakery across the street before heading back to the hotel.

 

Once at the hotel we all got showered, it felt so good to get the sand out of my hair and ears! Ollie loved the tub, he was like a maniac in it laying on his tummy swimming around as fast as he could. And then he used the back of the tub (where it sloped for people that are laying in it to lean back on) as a slide. He would sit as high as he could on it and then slide down into the tub. His energy level didn't go down at all when he got out. We got a diaper on him and then he was running around the bed tackling his shark and trying to dive off the side of the bed. Silly boy!

 

 Biting the shark...

 His favorite is putting his hand in the sharks mouth so it can bite him!

 A moment to stop and show the shark some love!

Making a run to dive off the bed!

The shark got his hand!

 

Tacking him...

 

He likes to make the shark bit his tummy...

He is pretty good at putting on a show!

 

Another great day in our little life- love love love this boy! More than once this weekend I thought how much life has changed, and each time I got a great big smile thinking about how much more fun our little family is with this big ray of sunshine in it. Can hardly believe that next month we'll be growing by one more. Two boys! What could be more exciting!!!