Family Time BEFORE Our Mission : California, Part 1

In March we drove down to California to deliver our Ford Escape to David and Marcelle who recently got a job in LA where you really need two cars.  We got to their lovely home Friday afternoon just shortly before my cousin Alan Holt and his wife Shelley stopped by to see us before our mission.

The Stays have a lovely big home with 3 bedrooms (one guest bedroom for family interested in travel), a garage for tools, a toyroom off the side of the big family room which opens onto a patio in the gated back yard filled with fruit trees, room to run and a fish pond and waterfall.

  

Saturday, even though it was a bit chilly, we drove to Huntington Beach, because, well that has been our tradition in California for 40 years.  It was great to be back, with Randy and I filling in as Grandma and Grandpa Stay.

M and J had a great time: J even went in swimming, but they both seemed to love being buried and made into a giant and a mermaid best.

David, Randy and I went out to body surf and generally enjoy throwing ourselves into the waves.  

You will note that I am the wimp in the full body wetsuit

We walked the beach, collecting shells and ephemera and watched a whole pod of dolphins frolic. A sailboat race went up the coast and back and David kept going back for more wave action.  I had the wisdom to finally stop after one particularly good ride before I got hammered into the sea bed like last time.

All in all we had a great day introducing a few more of this new generation of Stays to Huntington Beach.

Those of you who know Magnolia, the street we’d take to the beach, will recognize where we parked.

J and M had a great time, as their dad had 30 years earlier, chasing the ground squirrels into their holes.

It was important to us all to go by and see “HOME” one more time: Jesse and Helen’s house (and Linda and Darrell’s before that), site of sooo many great Stay reunions and vacations.

 We were tempted to pick some ORANGES like we always did first thing on prior trips, but resisted: David has orange and mandarin trees at his house which will have to sub for Jesse and Helen’s house at Huntington Beach.

More to come.