shred it: California Adventure- Day 16

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George, I hope you got a good night's sleep before you sit down to read this... because this one is going to exhaust you! I'm almost too exhausted myself to even write about it :)

We left our condo at 9:00am and headed south to Palos Verdes beach in San Pedro. My second shout out in the first four sentences of tonight's blog goes to Mr. Donald Trump. Mr Trump- Thank you kindly for opening your wonderful golf course to the public! I do not know if you wanted to or if they made you, but either way... we thank you for our wonderful day!! While doing a little research last night, Jon discovered that we could to park at the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes in order to have trail access to Palos Verdes beach. To get to the trail head we had to walk just past the clubhouse and right through the 10th and 12th tees of the golf course and it was just breathtakingly beautiful. There was a warning sign at the trail head that said hike at your own risk and we just may have been the only people crazy enough to brave the hike with twin 2 year olds! It was quite steep, but the most beautiful thing I have seen since we've been here. The beach was completely empty with turquoise waves crashing onto the rocks in front of giant cliffs reaching up into the sky. It was a rocky beach, so the boys sat and dug with their shovels and buckets while Jon and I searched for sea glass for awhile. Then we took the boys out to look for sea glass with us and they were actually able to find some on their own! When Jon and I took our Quebec/East Coast trip 10 summers ago, we spent two weeks combing the beaches of Forillon National Park and Acadia National Park for sea glass together. All of our friends thought we'd break up on that trip, but instead we have a beautiful jar filled with sea glass from the summer we both realized we wanted to marry each other. Hopefully we can fill a new little jar to put next to it from the summer our family explored the southern California coast :)

After three hours on the beach, we hiked back up the trail to the golf course path where we had a picnic overlooking the ocean. It was pretty cloudy so the pictures don't do it justice... but it was just a gorgeous view!!! By then it was nap time so Jon and I put the boys in their strollers, gave them their milk, and walked a few miles (literally!) along the edge of the ocean while the boys slept.

When they woke up, we drove over to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro and it was amazing. They have a big "touch tank" that is like a giant tide pool inside the aquarium and the boys got to touch all different kinds of sea stars, sea urchins, and colorful sea anemones. They even had a big open tank of leopard sharks and puffer fish but they highly recommended not touching those :) For awhile we walked around pointing out all of the different sea life to the boys- crabs, lobsters, octopus, jelly fish, etc. But then we turned the tables and let the boys lead us around. It felt so good to be in a place where they could just explore and follow their own curiosities!! And they had oh so many things to explore!!!

We left San Pedro right at dinner time but we managed to make it all the way back up to Hollywood before we stopped to eat. Jon wanted to go to this pizza place on Hollywood Blvd for dinner. After we ate, we drove up a bit and stopped at Grauman's Chinese Theater. It was really cool, but I've got to tell you- Hollywood skeeves us out a little bit!!!

Don't relax just yet George- our day isn't over yet!!! On our way home from Hollywood, we stopped to let the boys play at their favorite park- Holmby Park- in Beverly Hills. Although I was a bit disappointed to see that the house across the street that was for sale last time we played at Holmby Park has been sold. Oh well. I didn't really want to clean 18 bathrooms every week anyways! WHEW! Ok- that was it!!! At 8:00pm- 11 hours after we left- we finally returned back home! A quick snack, a tubby, and two stories later the boys are tucked into bed and dreaming sweet California dreams. And now for the photo bomb...

At Trump National Golf Club