We made our annual pilgrimage to the California Coast over Memorial Day weekend with several other families from my mom’s group. Highlights included playing at the beach, marshmallow roasting, rolling around inside a big inflatable ball, hiking, and generally catching up with old friends. Click on any of the pictures below to start a slideshow.
In September, we took our second annual family trip to camp in the coastal redwoods of California at Big Basin State Park in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. We had a great gang of kids under 5 sprinting around the redwoods, climbing on felled trees, roasting marshmallows, and playing in tents. We even went on a long hike together, with Claire walking almost four miles! Click on the picture of Juliet lounging on a tree for a slideshow.
In late May we headed back to Costanoa with a big group of kids and friends. We roughed it in a tent cabin with heated mattresses. Highlights included playing on the beach and a two-mile hike where Claire and her friend Logan played sword with some tall coastal grasses. There was also a bungie-jump trampoline thing that Claire played on, and as always lots of s’mores with very large marshmallows. Click on the picture of Katherine and Juliet for a slideshow.
A few weekends ago we headed to Big Basin State Park in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains for a weekend of camping with some friends of ours and Claire’s. We stayed in a tent cabin, which was adventurous without the headaches of squeezing a portable crib into our small backpacking tent. It was busy and fun, with ten kids under five-years-old running around our campsites, walking on felled redwood trees, playing hide and seek among the cabins, and roasting hot dogs and s’mores. It was also a chance to use our brand new roof rack on Katherine’s Subaru Outback. Click on the picture of Juliet and Clare among the redwoods for a slideshow.
