Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Enjoying Mission Beach...

Mission Beach is a great place to be, especially in April...we had it all to ourselves most of the time. We were on the southern end, where there isn't too much traffic. It was very peaceful (until we arrived I guess).





My friend Elyssa gave me a lot of books to read, but I enjoyed watching the kids play so much, that I only got about 60 pages of one book read while sitting on the beach. It is so peaceful just to sit and watch the waves come in and see the kids playing.




San Diego was very warm, they had record-breaking temperatures during our visit. However, the water in the ocean was still cold. I couldn't believe that Andrew & Janessa wanted to boogie board as much as they did. One day they were out in the water for about 5 hours!

Wait just a minute...what's this? Andrew & Janessa getting along? And for 5 hours no less! It was a true miracle...they finally found something that they can enjoy doing together without fighting, yelling or teasing! Now, that is what makes a family vacation worth every single penny!


The last day we were there, they decided not to get in the water. I was very surprised, but then I found out they were scared of all the jelly fish and sting rays that were reportedly in the water. The news said that 11 people were treated for stings from sting rays one of the days we were there. We also heard reports on our last day about jelly fish. Sure enough, once we started looking for them on the beach, we found tons! So, the kids stayed out of the water the last day...afraid of what was swimming with them.

Above is a photo we had taken of the moon jelly fish at Sea World. Below is a picture we took of a large jelly fish that Aaron discovered on the beach. We actually took a couple back to the condo with us and suspended them in water to observe. They were so interesting. We read up on them and found that they were probably the moon jelly fish, which aren't poisonous.

A funny side note. Andrew and I were researching jelly fish & sting rays on the internet (he was reading the descriptions of the stings to see how bad they hurt...wondering if it was worth going back to boogie boarding or not). We found the funniest post by someone from San Diego. This girl said that about once a year the news crews fly their helicopter real low along the beach. They take video of all the surfers and swimmers out in the ocean having a good ol' time. She said that you can see about 30 sharks in the water all around them! (A harmless kind they claim...is there such a thing, really?) Andrew got a kick out of that.

We loved being so close to the ocean. We especially loved watching the beautiful sunsets each night...we would all race to the beach around 7:30 each night to see them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ya, turns out there was a great white swimming with us, so...... don't you think that is reson enough mom?

Stacey said...

Ellen, I love these pictures of your kids....they are so darling