Glamping

Awe, another year camping "glamping" at New Brighton Beach. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to camp this year, with 2 kids and all, but Brandon makes it LOOK easy enough and pretty much does all the work anyway, so I said what the heck. My only complaint ended up being that we didn't stay long enough. With the amount of 'crap' we bring, we should be staying at least a week, not a measly 2 days.

Brandon, looking proud of his pack job (a neighbor camper referred to it as a puzzle...quite fitting)

The view from our campground #22

New Brighton is an amazing campground nestled on the bluff of Capitola. My family has been going there over 20 years on this same weekend during the "Wharf to Wharf " race. My mom runs it every year, along with my aunt Debbie, some other takers partake occasionally. Brandon, Elle (via stroller) and I even ran it a few years ago.

The only draw back to the campground is you have to book a year in advance (and even then, within seconds, the sites are gone). Good thing my mom always remembers January 2nd at 8 am to click away. This year was a particularly special one for me, and Elle especially. I had my sister and my adorable niece stayed the night one night. Kelly, Brad, Tyler and Briana usually only stay for the day (Tyler makes camping a little too difficult for them) but this year they took separate cars so the girls could stay. Elle, had the pleasure of being around great company. Not only were her cousins and "Mimi" there, but a plethora of aunts and uncles all willing and able to play with her (Kelly, Brad, "Reno" Debbie, Debbie, Sandy, David, Kirk and Linda, Lee-Ann, Chuck and "Cobra" the dog, Dax and "Shelby the dog", aka STD). All those people meant lots of help for Brandon and I too.

Reno Debbie "ergo-ing" Harlan so we could unpack

Sandy entertained Elle for hours with felt boards

I was doing some heavy lifting too

Brad, David, Kirk and Lee-Ann lent Brandon a hand setting up the "palace"

Saturday was AMAZING weather, so we soaked every last drop of the sun at the beach. It is only a steep stair walk away too!

Kelly and Briana making the trek (the picture doesn't do it justice)

Mimi and her grands

Elle enjoying time with uncle Brad

wave chasing

Reno Debbie, Briana, Elle and Brad running from the waves

Brad, Tyler and Kelly enjoying the water

Siesta time for Harlan and beer time for Brandon

The boys (Dax, Brandon and Harlan)

Adorable Briana loving the beach

Sandy and Linda building sandcastles with the girls

Cobra and Shelby making quite the dynamic duo

Me feeling left out

Sandy and David sharing some love

Brad and Harlan catching up

Tyler getting buried

The girls too

They loved it!

 

After a great time at the beach, we headed back up the dreaded stairs, and we hit the showers. Yes, they have showers...coin operated ones (25 cents for every 2 min). They also have bathrooms with mirrors, and some with electrical plugs too (if you stand by one long enough you will eventually see my mom there blow drying her hair), hence why I find glamping to be an appropriate term. After we cleaned up, we feasted on delicious appetizers and had an amazing spaghetti dinner (provided by Chuck and Lee-Ann) paired with Caesar salad, garlic bread and pie and s'mores for dessert.

S'mores before bed

Dax with Tyler in the hammock

Harlan enjoying his bath

Once the kiddos went to bed, we enjoyed some cocktails, and some hilarious conversations. The new drink of choice is vodka lemonade. We couldn't get enough of them. So much, that we had a flask on hand so we didn't even have to get up to refill our glasses. We did however, receive a buzz kill phone call from Brad informing Kelly that he had her car keys with him at the house (two cars, remember?). After some phone calls, David saved the day and the drinking continued!

of course the video monitors came along

The wiener roast off

After the late night hot dogs, we all called it a night. The morning would come soon enough. Sooner than we wanted. We slept pretty well until some strange cat moans woke us up in the wee hours of the morning. Not sure if the cat was in heat, injured, or mentally ill, but whatever it was, did not sound good. We officially said good morning around 7 am, just in time for us to bide farewell to the runners. Brandon and I wanted to cook breakfast for everyone, so we got the camping stoves fired up. We made breakfast burritos, pancakes and sausage....yummy! It ended up being a great joint effort and one heck of a feast.

The chef at work (eventually he went into a management role)

The goodness

Mickey Mouse pancakes for the girls

Formula for the boy

After breakfast we sat around the campfire, the girls played some games and had a blast in the hammock. The weather was not very good, so we were waiting for the fog to burn off. It never really happened, so we just hit the beach after awhile anyways.

Elle loving Chuck's sense of humor and giving it right back!

Felt boards with "Chucky"

   The girls having some vodka lemonades

 my mom was slightly over served

 Chuck and Cobra

climbing the drift wood

it made a neat little cave

After another fun day at the [cold] beach, we headed back up to take showers to get clean and warm. We had leftovers for dinner that were just as delicious as the first time around, if not better. I would like to say that we hooped it up all night again, but this time we were all tired and turned it at 9:30! I know, we should be ashamed of ourselves. I think Debbie was a little disappointed to be going home with so many FULL bottles of wine and champagne. I have to say, I was happy we did go to bed when we did, because we had an early morning meltdown to deal with. Not sure why Elle has the meltdowns she does, but WOW. Nothing like waking up everyone to Elle saying over and over again that she wanted to "run outside". Not sure what was going on in her brain at that moment and I am not sure she did either. Anyone else have a child who does these outrageous tantrums? If so, please speak now!

Anywhoo, we all recovered and laughed about it later (or not). It is always a bummer to have to take down camp. Brandon, once again made it look easy, and I did a lot of supervising. Thank goodness for my mom, and amazing aunts for entertaining Elle, so we could do so. They even took her to the stage and danced with her and acted like monkeys. I took pictures of them from our campground. What troopers they all were.

 Debbie had the best Monkey for sure...

As usual, Harlan was playing on the floor entertaining himself

We finally got out of there around noon, only to get stuck in traffic on hwy 17. It took us an hour to get down the "forest" (as Elle called it) to go 13 or so miles. Gees, but wonders never cease...Elle ended up falling asleep on the drive home.Of course it wasn't in the beginning of the 3 1/2 hour long drive. Instead, it was in the last 15 minutes. Just our luck.

 This really is a first

Thanks to all the campers for another great year!