Dirt, Giraffes, and Waves

This past weekend the Yates Family camped out at our old favorite -- Carpinteria State Beach. It's just a few miles north up the coast from Ventura. Our family always went there at least once a summer growing up, but we hadn't all been there together since 1996.

This was Jillian's very first camping trip! She is really not into getting sand or dirt on her when we go to the park, so I was not sure what she would think of camping and getting dirty and going to the beach with all the sand and waves. Well, it was all a big hit! She spent quite a bit of time building sand castles with Jacob. At one point, she looked up at him very dreamy-eyed and said, "Jacob, you're my best friend."

She especially enjoyed our day trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo! We told her about this part of the trip the night before we left and quickly realized that was a mistake. It took her so long to fall asleep that night. She kept calling us back to her room to tell us that she was going to dream of giraffes and elephants and lions. Thankfully, we were able to see all of those animals and much more. It was a really lovely place to walk around and hang out.

The whole weekend was a lot of fun. We even managed to get Chris to admit that it wasn't as horrible as he expected it to be. But he did inform me not to expect him to be a camper now. (Don't worry Lovey, I didn't dare hope for that!) I have to say he was a good sport even though I "forced" him to come along for the two things he hates the most: camping and the beach. He even came and sat under the umbrella on the beach for a little while when we were swimming and boogie boarding. Jillian's first question when she woke up this morning was, "Mommy, can I swim in the ocean today?" It was so much fun to take her to do some of her firsts: camping, digging at the beach, swimming in the ocean, getting dirty on purpose, and going to the zoo.

(For now, the slideshow is available via this link: ZOO. I'm hoping slide.com will be more cooperative tomorrow and I can post it directly onto this post.)