Dave was able to take one day off this Spring Break and we did not want to waste it sitting home, so a fun beach outing was planned! Gotta hit the beach over Spring Break, right? Strangely, though, the beach in Northern California is a chilly place to be! We were more freezing here than we were up in the snow in the mountains!
Santa Cruz has SO many fun options, we let everyone in the family chose a destination they for sure wanted to hit. Dave picked the pier, where an hour long stroll affords you the view of all kinds of wildlife. We saw otters, a whale, and these hilarious and noisy sea lions, amusing us with their attempts to haul their blubbery bodies up into the air and onto a narrow balance beam of wood under the pier.
Ella loves fish now! Her must-do for the day was to eat some local seafood. We had lunch at a lovely restaurant and were even brave enough to eat outdoors-- under one of the blasting heaters. :)
My choice was beach and hiking. By visiting Natural Bridges State Park, we were able to do both. This is such an iconic beach with the dramatic rock arch right off shore.
We loved hiking all sorts of terrain here-- from the rocky shoreline to the fragrant Eucalyptus groves to the forresty swamps.
After an afternoon stop at the world's best ice cream shop, Marianne's, (which was ALL of our choice!), we concluded our super fun Santa Cruz day with Delia's pick-- the always fun pirate mini-golf on the Boardwalk. We all played a great 18 holes and this picture captures the intensity of Dave tallying up the within points of each other final scores!
We have a few days left in our break and a few more plans to get together with different people, but probably nothing I'll blog about. It's been a good mixture of relaxing, playing with school and church friends, and adventuring on fun outings this break. Just what we needed to recharge for that final push till the end of this school year-- 6 weeks, 3 and a half days (not that we're counting or anything!)
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