We sat down Friday night after laying the kids down…we HAD to have a good game plan cause the last 2 times we bombed the egg hunts…NOT THIS TIME baby! So we put our hands in and threw it up and yelled, “Go team Wortley!” Ok…so maybe we didn’t yell, but I did at heart!
We woke up, and went to it! Mark was in charge of preparing breakfast while I sun screened the kids and dressed them. Did I mention the kids slept in until 9 a.m.!?! WOW! We were out of our hole and in the van by 10 a.m. THIS IS HUGE!! I know you don’t get it…but let me try to explain…the apartment is NOT big, which means if the kids get a second they don’t have far to run to grab 100 toys and throw them all over the place…which is what happens, esp. with Grissom!
So anyhow, Ella’s in the back of the van and she says, “OK mom and dad…try harder then you’ve EVER tried before to get us to this Easter Egg Hunt, cause if you don’t you need to buy is one!” ha!! The funny thing was that the hunt started @ 11 and we started out going the WRONG way once again! But this time because we were SO on top of things we had time to turn around and we made it to the hunt with 20 minutes to spare! We did have to park and walk a nice distance, but it was worth it. It was very funny to see that this place was a small area to have a hunt. They’d broken up the hunt by age even. So Ella and Keegan were at the front lawn (about the size of our front yard and the Koester's put together). Grissom and I went behind the building to a small play set for the kids 3 and under.
Here’s the thing;
a small side note:
one should be able to go to an Easter egg hunt and breathe clean air. Now something I never wanted to learn I learned very soon after we moved in…when you think you smell a skunk…think again. If you are in California and you think you smell a skunk it’s really marijuana. This is called Skunk Weed. This is what we GET/HAVE to smell almost daily at about 3p.m. cause the guy under us has a ritual. Which is why we aren't in the house around that time!! I’ve also learned that the phrase ‘5 o’clock somewhere' is a very popular time (we back home call it the time to relax and have a drink) HERE in California they have a phrase that’s called "4:20"…this is a universal time to smoke weed!
OK…now back to the Easter egg hunt…As I stood waiting with my 2 year old I smelled this nice scent on and off until the hunt was over.
Grissom did a great job waiting. The rule for his age group was that every adult had to be holding onto their child and could either hold the basket for them or hand them an egg (this was their way of keeping things ‘nice and considerate’) The whole while I’m thinking; oh, people are so nice here there should be NO problem. HOLY Cow!! It’s a good thing I had him in my arms because some of those moms and dads used all sorts of body parts (I’m thinking bottoms) to ‘protect ‘or help their little ones grab the most eggs. I took Grissom back to the back side of the area and as I sat him down to help him I noticed something very warm and wet POURING out all over me. Before I had time to even think I noticed that I had stuck my coffee mug/thermos in the side pocket of my mommy bag which was on my left shoulder…yep…I totally poured it down my side, on my sleeve, and all over my left pant leg…NICE!! The things I do to help my child grab plastic eggs! But he did great. He was picking up one with each hand and throwing them into his basket and running for more. I did have to use MY body to protect him from getting stepped on by another dad who wasn’t following the rules! He told me he was sorry afterwards!
After the hunt was over we met Mark, Ella, and Keegan. Grissom was the winner who’d picked up a good 9 eggs and Ella and Keegan both came away with 3 each. Mark said their age group had a few kid-fights! Too many kids, and parents weren’t even allowed in to help those kids (which was probably a good thing!). We hung out here for a good few hours. They had bouncy jumper things that all 3 of the kids LOVED. Then Ella made a cute hat/craft. Then they went into this cute little petting zoo they had. The kids loved petting the baby goats, a little lamb, bunnies, and chickens! We ended our time by having a little lunch! This whole event was free (except the food, but that was super cheap!!). The boys ran around the front lawn for a bit while Ella and I created a flower headpiece.
We left with more fun times ahead! The sun was out and nice after lunch, and we had a ton of sand toys from early Easter ‘gifts’ so we hit the beach! We decided to try a little north of us, it’s fort ord area. This used to be a huge training facility for the army. The dunes here were used for major training and shooting ranges. When I say huge I mean huge. We passed by old worn out bunkers – it looked like we were in a movie. It felt like we were in the midst of ‘I am Legend’ with how many buildings were in this place…we are talking streets lined with 3 bunkers deep…I’m hoping to attach more pics. It felt like a ghost town. The road taking us back to this state park/beach took us all throughout this area. We made a turn to our right and it was to coolest thing ever. We saw where once was railroad tracks and it looked like a loading dock…this is where the trains brought in and took out supplies for training the army. It was just super cool and again sad that it was left to just fall down with time. We were a little concerned about what this beach was going to be like at this point, but we kept going. We found the parking lot and found we had a little bit of a walk ahead of us.
It proved to be one of the best beaches we’ve ever been to. The sand dunes are totally huge and the kids had the best time ever climbing them. I wasn’t worried about them falling cause I knew they’d roll and it was all on super soft sand! How dirty!! My Dad once gave Keegan a bath and told me that he’d NEVER seen such dirty water…you should have seen my kids! I was SO proud of them! And I must say Mark had a ball too! No one even wanted to touch the water; not because it was too cold but because we were all too busy exploring and playing in the sand! Mommy even got to lay out and soak up some yummy reys!! We stayed until dinner time (a late dinner time). When we got to our door I made the kids strip down to their skimmies before they could enter…and they went straight to the bathroom…let's just say we had to give Ella and Keegan showers cause the water was SO dirty after Grissom’s bath we just couldn’t redo 2 more baths! We ate our dinner and watched our Easter movie!!
They were so tired that I think all 3 kids fell asleep within 3 minutes of their heads hitting their pillows.
Mark and I got to work…we were having the 2 men who came out here with us who also work with CMS coming over for Easter dinner and we were hoping to last minute invite our neighbors next to us over, Katherine and Chase. So Mark made devil eggs, while I baked what was going to be a yummy chocolate Bunny cake…meanwhile I also got my Macaroni and Cheese made and ready. Mark cleaned (a huge task…it only takes about 20 minutes to clean this place up and down!) but he did a great job! We ran into a little challenge when we got out the Easter stuff and realized we had nothing to put it in…so we took a few of the sand buckets and filled them for the kids…this year everything is all about sharing and team work…so the kids had to share everything that was given.
We were ready for Easter to come!
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