End of summer magic at Jalama Beach

Our pals the Simons head to the most amazing spot every year to wind down that last little bit of summer. Up past Santa Barbara and not quite to Lompoc off of the 1 is this beautiful beach, 14 miles off the road, called Jalama (pronounced with a HA). There is no internet or cell phone reception. There’s a store that has anything one could possibly ever need on a camping trip.

JT LOVES hanging with B at their house because they have an awesome pool and ping pong and a baby bearded dragon. JT and B and quite the buddies. The Simons love camping and doing cool stuff as a family. They have desert toys and a motor home and go tent camping a lot too. 

We were invited to join them on there annual Jalama trip and it was such an awesome and fun experience! While they host the group campsite for about two weeks, we were able to join them for 3 days. We packed up our Mini Winnie and headed up the coast to this gorgeous spot. The company was great, food always tastes that much more amazing when you are camping, the kids ran free, body boarded, dug for sand crabs and just got to BE.

I got the chance to take an early morning run down the beach. There's something about running towards nothing that is so calming. I saw pods of dolphins, sea lions and more. It did freak me out a little as I ran seeing all the sand crabs and darn sand fleas. I tried to focus on the pretty lol.
Later that day, we walked the kids down to the same point I ran to earlier.

The kids found rocks and created their own "fire pit". They wanted so badly to make a fire and I, as me, would have said HECK no. But Mr. S was so cool that he sat there with them and helped them light their fire pit. They were all so aware and careful and excited that their plan worked.  You know that, "I Have Made Fire!" feeling.

Our cool new friends, the Simons. Thank you for inviting us on this super rad trip!

So much beauty surrounded this place. We got a chance to walk through the nature preserve areas with Hea Bug since JT couldn't be pulled away from the ocean. We heard this very sentence, "Body Boarding is my life!".

Flying kites

We had the most wonderful time on this trip. It was great company, a beautiful beach, and lots of adventure. Being disconnected from work, phone calls, facebook, emails, instagram, blogger, texting, pinterest, was fantastic... I didn't think about anything and we were all able to be in each moment. We visited and read and laughed and grubbed and soaked in the end of summer magic.

The Great Mother's Day RV Costal Adventure

Just home, showered and wiped from our AMAZING Mother's Day weekend trip. I knew if I didn't take the chance to now, it would be at least a week before I updated with this post. So with my last ounce of vacation energy... here's a taste of the fun we had.

We've ultimately decided that "things" are nice and we like "things" but "experiences"... that's where the real memory making is at. For mother's day this year, Mr B. rented an RV from Cruise America and we invited my mom (Maga) along on our adventure. We packed up the RV on Thursday night with the intention of taking off for our campsite of Pismo Beach, CA early Friday morning. At the urging of our buddy JR, we decided to just head out. The fridge was packed and beds were made so why not? We'd wake up someplace new. Well, finding a place to park an RV when you aren't used to parking an RV at 2:00am, that's a new challenge for us. I tried staying awake as long as possible but we were all wiped out so in Carpenteria, we pulled over near an IHOP and slept for a bit. Mr B started driving again around 7 and the jolting of the "Bus" began the wake up process for everyone else. Thank you YELP for helping us find Ellen's Danish Pancake house in Buelton!

We passed Pismo and went further up the coast to San Simeon. We went on a tour of Hearst Castle, a tour that we've done two times before but it was Maga's first time. Plus the benefit of different guides is that you learn something new every time you go. We enjoyed the tour and afterwards headed back down to our campsite. I created the menu before we left and did a great job sticking to every meal plan. We were so wiped out by the end of day we knocked out after dinner.

 Saturday morning, I went for the best run ever. Over the Oceano Dunes and out on to the beach. Four 1/2 miles of complete bliss.

We went adventuring through the beautiful diversity of the California Coast. Through farm land and cattle land, ocean and sand. We stopped at the famous Madonna Inn so that JT and Mr B could pee in the Rock Waterfall Urinal hahaha. We wrapped up the day with a long walk on the insanely windy beach. There were a ton of wind surfers out! After another great dinner, more campsite walking and playing and showers, we played some dominos and hit the sack after it got dark.

Sunday morning brought yummy aebleskivers, chicken, apple and gouda sausage and a mushroom scramble. After packing up our site, we ventured down to Solvang, CA and had lunch, pastries, ice cream. It was an amazing weekend packed with fun, quality time and love. I LOVE MY OHANA. So incredibly much!