Thursday, August 7, 2014

oxnard vacay... so worth getting past the name

  
after waiting a year for international flight prices to go down,
we were pretty bummed that a european trip
wasn't going to work out this summer.
i know, wah for us.
first world problems.

we talked and talked about where to go. we were planning on traveling with
another family.
we wanted to make sure that wherever we went could accommodate the 4 adults and 10 children
that would be in the party.
we seemed to be ruling out every idea.
too far, too expensive, too much work...
finally another friend suggested oxnard, ca.

we have a friend that has lived near there for years and had been telling us how cool it is.
the more people we talked to about it, the more great things we were hearing.
it's north of LA, so not too bad of a drive. 
it's not crowded, which is a huge plus because that's one of the things
 i dislike about going to san diego.
it has plenty of day trips to take.
we decided to try it out.

and i would definitely go back.

we started our trip meeting friends in las vegas for 2 nights.
we got to visit some of paul's cousins and have a swim party & bbq.
we had a great time at the hoffbrau house and even won a stein.

as we were headed to cali, we went to whole foods for breakfast and ran into kenny loggins. he really liked baby J's amber beads. we were a little star struck when we got back in the car and finally figured out who he was. i mean, i know who he is, but he didn't look anything like the long haired jesus i remember.



once we got to oxnard, we found our rental house exactly as the previous renters had left it. the cleaning crew had not been there yet. the owners got a crew there and offered to buy us dinner while we waited... all 14 of us.

here is the view from the rooftop... not bad!



we got the kids together and walked down to a recommended restaurant.



 it was a fresh seafood restaurant so we all went to town with the ordering. S ordered shark, she said it was on her bucket list.


halibut or sea bass or something.... whatever it was it was delicious.

it was really amazing traveling with our friends. the kids all got along for the most part. there were some toddler sqeamishes and occasional mini melt downs... but overall everyone was very well behaved.

  

yep... that's even a hug from the tweens!!
 
we spent every day except one on the beach. and we tried to literally stay all day. 
i don't know what it is about the beach, but my kids can play forever there.
they body surfed and dug sand tunnels for hours. plus having friends there made it all even more fun.

we took a day trip to solvang, a cute little dutch town.
we ate dutch food, had dutch chocolate, dutch ice cream and a dutch pastry called aebleskivers.
YUMMMMY  
it was a mini european vacation...   

we decided to spend the rest of the time having beach time. the days seemed to be going too fast. we wanted as much relaxing ocean time as possible.
this baby loved the beach! he's an angel :)

we cooked dinner all but two nights. the kids had fun watching movies together, putting on shows, magic mainly but a few talent shows as well. they even led rosary at night together. the perfect calming activity.

 R was really into his disappearing arm trick.
back to the beach....



 the whole gang.

we were visited by dolphins everyday.

 and seagulls too... a little too close.

i found this delicious doughnut shop one morning. i used them to bribe the kids on the drive home.

after the kids were asleep, we were able to have some nice adult time. if you happened to be the first to doze off, you were punished appropriately.

so thankful for our time together and for such wonderful family friends to travel with!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

love that last pic!

Laura said...

thank you for this. your vacation is the closest I have gotten (and will get to) a beach this summer!

xo