Three years ago today: Carpenteria Beach

Zen meditation on Carpenteria Beach

Three years ago today we went to the beach in Carpenteria, Calif.! The beach is north of Ventura along Hwy. 1 on the way to Santa Barbara.

The temperature was a perfect 71 degrees with clear, sunny skies and a gentle breeze off the Pacific Ocean. You had fun frolicking around in the sand, and I'm certain you enjoyed the weather, as the High Desert where we lived was a little cool.

We didn't spend much time on the beach, as we were on our way to Solvang for the day. On the way back, we stopped off in Ojai!

Here are some photos from our time at the beach!

Remember Ventura beach playground?

Four years ago today we went to the beach in Ventura!

We spent much of the time enjoying the playground, which had ocean-themed play equipment. For example, the slide looked like a waterfall, and an obstacle course had nets like what fishermen would use.

The stop at the beach was just part of our day in Ventura. We also went to the Scottish festival at the county fairgrounds!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our adventure at the beach playground!

Your many trips to Oregon

When we were last together putting together the U.S. puzzle map, I mentioned that you had been to Oregon a few times. You said you didn't remember going there. That's not surprising, as you were just a baby when  you went to Oregon!

I don't remember how many times you've been to Oregon, but it mainly was to Brookings for shopping trips as we lived in Crescent City, Calif., at the time. We also went a few times to Medford for shopping and the airport there; those trips took us through Grants Pass.

A couple of bigger trips we took to Oregon was to a kitchy place where fiberglass dinosaurs were dsiplayed in the forest and once to a safari camp where you could drive your car through an area with wild animals like lions and bears!

I've included a picture here of me holding you at an Oregon wayside along U.S. Hwy. 101 overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was taken in the evening during autumn 20007.

Spending Memorial Day at Disneyland

Kieran at Disneyland, May 30, 2011.

Two years ago today, we spent Memorial Day at Disneyland!

I had just moved to San Diego, and when picking you up for the weekend, we went to Disneyland on Saturday and then drove along the ocean back to my place in Encinitas. Having just moved, I didn't have a lot of spare money, but since Disneyland was on the way between my place and your mother's, and since we had Disneyland annual passes, going there again on Monday made sense.

We spent a good amount of time in the morning at Fantasyland and then during the afternoon went over to California Adventure. I remember us seeing the Muppet 3D show and going on the Monsters Inc. ride.

Here's a whole bunch of pictures of us from our Memorial Day adventure!

Past the big trees and the big waters

Kieran, 10-12 weeks old,
Crescent City, Calif.

Caught the end tail of a televsion program about Redwood National Park and instantly thought of you. You were born in Eureka, Calif., when we lived in Crescent City, Calif., wich is where Redwood National Park is located. Redwood State Park near Crescent City is where I took you on your first hike when you were just four months old.

Both cities were on the Pacific Ocean. Eureka was the larger of the two cities; the Eureka-Arcata area had about five times as many people as Crescent City, so about once a month we'd go shopping there at the larger stores and mall.

Whenever we'd go to on the trip, I'd say to you, "We're going on a big trip past the big trees and the big waters to the big city!"

You'd just smile back!

Our many Pacific Ocean adventures

June 20, 2011, Moonlight Beach,
in Encinitas, Calif.

Do you remember all of the times we went to the ocean? We went quite a number of times to the beach in Ventura and Encinitas and once to the beach in Carpenteria. We'd also do the boardwalk in Long Beach, and when you were an infant, you went to beaches in and around Crescent City.

You always liked to let the tide rush in at you and see if you could evade it by running away. Sometimes you were successful! Because you couldn't yet swim, I always had to make sure I held your hands so you wouldn't get knocked down and float away on me.

We also went to different aquariums that had fish, mammals and other animals that lived in the ocean. The Aquarium of the Pacific on Long Beach by far was your favorite. We also went once to the Birch Aquarium in San Diego and a couple of times to Sea World in San Diego.

Here's some pictures from a couple of those ocean adventures!

Baby picture along Pacific Ocean

Stumbled across this great baby picture of you and had to share it! The picture was taken in September 2007 when we lived in Crescent City, Calif. We traveled north into southwestern Oregon and took this in the very early evening while driving by the Pacific Ocean. It's looking south with California behind us. You always had a binkie in your mouth, it seemed - and always demanded that you have one handy! It got to the point where we tied a string to it and clipped it to whatever you wearing so that you could put it in and take it out whenever you liked!

Your sand toys through the years

As I promote my new book, which contains a poem set at Ventura Pier, I began to think of all of our great visits to that beach and the sand toys you had. You're always in my thoughts, it seems, no matter what I'm doing.

Your first sand toys weren't meant for the beach at all but for the big sand pits at the local playgrounds. The Santa Clarita park near where we lived when you were a year old had a great sand pit to play in around a huge castle-like play equipment. most of the other other parks had good sand pits, too, though of varying quality.

We mostly took our sand toys to the beach, though - lots of shovels, buckets, and a few plastic trucks that we could build roads for. There also was this great colorful toy that you could dump sand into and it would go through a funnel turning a wheel below it.

The picture on this page shows you in March 2012 at Ventura city beach with the Ventura Pier in the background. These were the last sand toys I purchased for you. I had forgot to bring our sand toys because I'd been moving stuff to our new condo, so we stopped at Target and picked up these!

Do you remember going to the beach?

Ventura city beach, Feb. 2012

One of your favorite places to go when you were little was to the beach. There were a couple of ocean beaches in particular that we uusally went to - the Ventura city beach next to the pier in Ventura, Calif., and Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, Calif.

We spent a lot of time building sand castles - which you then always liked to knock down in some large imaginary battle! You'd usually help me build a couple of turrets, play with the sand toy vehicles for a bit (Sometimes you'd bury the vehicles in the sand and ask me to find them!), and then ask me when I'd be done with the castle so that you could knock it down! Sometimes you;d let me bury you in the sand, too.

Next we'd head down to the water, where we'd play chase and avoid the waves. You loved to get wet and splash in the water. Sometimes I think you were pretending it was a great monster trying to capture you.

Both beaches also had playgrounds, and we'd usually spend a little time there to warm up after going into the cold water. If we were lucky, there usually was an open food stand nearby so that we could enjoy a snack!

I'm afraid the water bodies here in the Midwest aren't quite as exciting as the Pacific Ocean, but there are some neat beaches on the St. Croix River that I can't wait to take you to.