Love the Ocean, Dig the Beach

I love where we live!  Country, city, farmland, hills, and the ocean are all nearby.  And the mountains are pretty darn close too.

The weekend before last, we headed out to the coast for a Family Day that was quite smile worthy.

The Northern California coastline is gorgeous!  While I've never been to any kind of tropical beach, I've been to both the East & West coasts and of all the locales I've visited, I just love the northern half of this state's coastline.  I start relaxing before we're even out of the car as the terrain and the air changes.

This is a no swimming beach, too many rip tides.

But, that didn't stop our fun!

There was chilling and playing in the sand to do.

And digging.  Lots o' digging.

And sand flying (she had more sand than hair on the top of her head by the end of the day!).

One dug a very narrow, uniform hole longer than the arm's length, while the other made some sand angels.

Hubs adventure walked with our boy, several times, seeing what the ocean had washed up.  And in between adventure walks, Hubby grabbed some smooth stones to create stacked sculptures, reminiscent of our dating days when one of our ocean visits treated us to a woman creating these all over the beach.

And me?  I hung out, clicked away with my cameras, looked at the kids' sand creations & holes, picnicked with the fam, got a wee bit obsessed looking at this weathered & worn log, tracing the lines with my eyes, and simply relaxed.

This was the best family beach visit ever.  The kidlets are old enough now that we weren't spending the whole time chasing them or conversely, forced to cop a squat when our arms tired of carrying a baby.  We've always loved our visits to the coast, but now, I think we'll love them even more!

Where do you like to go as a family?  Where do you relax?