Where was Clint?

It’s Clint Eastwood, if you’re wondering. We went to Carmel over the weekend (Carmel-by-the-Sea, if I want to be PC about it). Oh, and by the way, Clint hasn’t been the mayor there for EIGHT years. Where have I been? Oh, I got married and had two beautiful daughters, that’s where. So, but I do remember taking a family vacation to Carmel when I was much younger and hoped that we would see Clint. We didn’t, or my guess is that I would have a picture of it.

Anyway, the four of us went down there this weekend to camp. Our second camping trip already this season and it is not even SUMMER yet. I’d say it was a good time all around, and I was all prepared to take a ton of photos. When we were at the Carmel beach on Saturday morning, I turned on the camera to take the first of what I hoped to be many pictures, and that wasn’t happening because the camera was screaming at me - “NO CARD!!!” Turns out that I left the card in the laptop ever since I did that whole photo recovery thing. At least Josh had a camera in his phone, so we got three pics. Here are two of them:



Very fun trip for us.

The highlights:

Carmel Beach: Bea ran up and down the sand hill about ten times. Olivia was scared of the water and in general played the family grouch. It was a few hours of fun.

Monterey: The girls rode their bikes (Bea: Bike with training wheels; Olivia: New Radio flyer trike with handle to easily steer child that just refuses to use peddles) for a very long distance. Bea rode so fast that I sometimes had to run (TRAINING!!!!) to keep up with her. As I was trying to help her across the intersection and ensure that she not fall and we not make cars wait endlessly, I grabbed the back of her seat and the bike fell over, to which she then yelled at me that I MADE HER FALL. At the Monterey pier, we grubbed on chowder in a bread bowl and fresh crab do-dads. We hopped on a “view the bay” 25-minute boat ride and cruised around and saw massive amounts of sea lions and kelp. No scared girls, thank goodness.

Mango Margaritas: First night at Bahama Billy’s (HIGHLY RECOMMEND) the second at some Mexican place where I spent most of our dining experience in the bathroom handling two pees and one poop from both girls.

Campfire bacon: It really is the best. And Josh made me an egg, cheese and bacon sandwich. YUMMY.

Tent coziness: The four of us sleeping under one tent. The first night was unpleasant with Olivia pushing me off my spot or head butting me all night; the second a little more peaceful (because we found a camping store and purchased a cot with padding that we used to make more room for everyone).

Lowlights:

Drama: Girl drama and fighting, but that’s no different than a typical day for us.

Sleeping: The girls stayed up late, possibly from all the excitement. They did not sleep in. As soon as that sun peeked through the tent and it was no longer dark, up they were, and LOUD. I wouldn’t be surprised if we woke up a bunch of other “polite” campers.

Father’s Day: With all the craziness and not being on our routine, I felt awful about remembering that it was father’s day on the ride home from Carmel. Bad me. I hope that the camping trip made Josh’s weekend since he’s a camper. I’m usually much more of a planner. Sigh. Sorry, Josh. You're a great father and you deserved much more...I guess there is always next year, right?