life's a beach

My favorite things to do at the beach:

1. Watch the waves, surfers, people. The waves were huge that day - bigger than I've ever seen them at Santa Cruz. And the people...there wasn't any shortage of people watching that day.

2. Sleep on the beach....aahhh....there's nothing better than sleeping with the sun on your face, the wind in your hair and the sound of the waves in the background. Mom, Miss and I all got a bit of a beach snooze in. Lovely.

3. Play with Ryan. He wasn't too sure of the sand at first and he definitely didn't like the freezing cold northern california ocean. But after a while, he was shoveling with the best of them.

4. Ride the carousel.

Ryan wasn't too sure about the ride. I'm not sure if it was the horse moving up and down and around and around or the funny grandpa in the horse ahead of us taking pictures like the paparazzi.

The main reason we go to Santa Cruz is to ride the carousel at the Boardwalk. It's an old classic carousel with beautifully painted horses. And the trick on this carousel is to choose a horse on the outside so you can grab a ring and throw it at the clown.

In the above picture, Melissa is just about to grab a ring out of the arm that sticks out from the wall. There's orange, yellow and black painted at the end. See it? Once you grab the ring, you have about 1 second to get ready and throw it in the clown's mouth below...

I think Melissa might have gotten a bulls-eye here. When you throw it in his mouth, his eyes light up. And they definitely look lit up.

We love coming to the beach....so much so that we found a little beach house that we might try to stay at next year!