Mission Beach, Part I ... Beachin' It!

My parents treated all of us to an AMAZING vacation this Summer! From July 10th-17th, they rented a house on the beach in Mission Beach. Our home away from home was so incredible! It was about 6 houses up from the beach, and 2 alleys over from the boardwalk. We all (Coxes, Winnett's and us) had planned to lay low on vacation. We feel like we do Disneyland enough, and really didn't have a desire to go to Sea World with a Summer crowd, we just wanted to veg. And that is what we did...absolutely veg out! The house we stayed in was so large and accomodating, spreading out over two floors plus a rooftop patio with a view of the boardwalk, the ocean and a nightly unobstructed fireworks display over the bay provided by Sea World!

Not only were our digs super cool, but the location was too! We pulled the car out only twice, during the whole week. We literally sat on the beach day after day, walked to the boardwalk for rides, games and ice cream (<---nightly after the kids went to bed! shhhh!), walked to dinner at end of our block one night, rented bikes, went on walks and just played!

I cannot remember a time, since we've had kids, that I have been so relaxed! Conal and Bub got up almost every morning and went to play frisbee on the beach before it got crowded. They would set up our chairs and easy up and stake our claim for the day! I enjoyed a fantastic beach read..which I haven't done in years! The kids played in the ocean, dug in the sand, ate and ate and ate...Papa had to work a little bit, Memaw soaked up her grandkids, and we all got a kick out of watching Paisley's love/hate relationship with sand!

The memories are so vivid, but so hard to put into words. A few months later, and the four of us are still talking about our vacation. It was definately something we needed!

An early morning walk turned up a lot of shells, some crabs and a

sea lion!

Fun in the sun, sand and surf!

Jellyfish...We saw a lot of them!

Mission Beach, Part II...Boardwalk!

The first night that we were all there, we went to scout out the Boardwalk. The kids had fun going on a couple of rides, and us big kids had fun going on the Giant Dipper. Well, three of us did, I'm not sure Conal's girl-like squeal could've been constituted as fun! We finished our night there with a visit to the ice cream shoppe. Big mistake, or greatest memory ever..not sure which one, yet! That turned in to a nightly adventure! Each night after we put the kids to bed, we'd go get a cone! We'd bring my mom a treat, since she stayed with the kids while they were sleeping! ALTHOUGH...the first night...after we all got back from the boardwalk and the kids and my parents were in bed, we were sitting on the rooftop deck listening to the roller coaster. It sounded like so much fun that Pam, Bub, Con and I snuck out to take one last whirl for the night! Boardwalk...'After Dark' ;-)

Mission Beach, Part III...Outtakes