Wyatt's Beach Experience

Oh Wyatt. He loves camping. He does great with car rides that last for hours. He slept all the way through the night even though he would wake up in the morning with frozen hands. And he loves swimming pools, but the ocean and sand was waaaay too different for my poor little dude.

Here we are about to go to the beach for the first time...

...and this is how much he liked it: NOT AT ALL.

I had to hold him the whole time, and when I would walk into the water with the waves, he used his death grip on my arm. He wasn't crying, but he was whining...
The second visit was much better. He was still apprehensive, but at least he would let me put him down.
I tried to get him to play in the sand...

...and then a big wave came and...that was the end.

(random picture, but I thought it was funny...)

The next couple of visits I just let him chill out with family...no playing in the sand and waves...

...but by the end, he decided it wasn't so scary and started playing in the sand. I think it might have been because by the 5th day he was tired of being held and wanted to crawl around, which he did. He still didn't much care for the water, so I left him up in the dry sand...

Tide pools

A few of the days, during low tide in the afternoon, we walked over to the tide pools, shown at the very edge of this cliff on the left side...

We took a big group and had fun exploring...I was especially excited because I'd never been to a tide pool before...

This is what the first part looked like...not very appetizing from first glance, but once you looked closer everything seemed to be alive!!
Jeff was fearless and was the first one to jump into the water to find things...there were mussels and barnicle and seaweed everywhere.

...oh, and TONS of sea anemone!

It was shallow water, so we were able to navigate through most of it...my only problem was the seaweed...I was grossed out sometimes, haha!

We found lots of crabs like this one, but also hermit crabs in shells...

...and once we really started looking, we found STARFISH!

Lots of them...

This one was my favorite...Jeff pulled it off it's rock so we could all hold it...

The surrounding rocks were all smooth and oddly shaped from having the water beat against it for so long...

Another starfish...

My camera died about halfway through our adventures, but you got the gist of it :)

The last part of the trip...

So the 5th day (the day before we left for home) we decided to finally visit Santa Barbara. We first stopped off at the Painted Caves where the Chumash Indians had...painted some caves...haha! It was a beautiful drive up the mountain on a narrow winding road...

We wished we could have seen it up close, but due to graffiti, it had been closed off by a gridiron door...it was really interesting though...

I think this was the only groupshot of all the kids...minus Jacob...

We also stopped by the Santa Barbara Mission! Jeff and I really enjoyed learning about all that happened there. It's actually still used today as a church, but when we went we were able to take a tour and see a ton of artifacts and a read a lot of information about the history of this mission...

I really liked this fountain...it was built in the 1800's

This is a statue of Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen who founded the mission in 1786

Cute photo op:

This is the graveyard where more than 4000 indians are buried as well as some of the clergy...

Huge-est tree ever...in the graveyard...

The skull and crossbones were there to let you know you were entering the graveyard

The chapel was absolutely gorgeous...high, vaulted ceilings, chandeliers, huge paintings on the walls...

There were some statues at the back of the chapel, and I really liked these ones of Christ and Mary Magdalene after he was resurrected...

There was also a sacred garden, a bunch of different rooms holding artifacts of the clergy and the building of the mission and the lifestyle of the indians and the church. It was really, really...awesome.

And after that we went into Santa Barbara and ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant...it was SOOOO good. We did a little walking and looked in a few shops, but mostly enjoyed the atmosphere.

This trip was so much fun! I especially liked spending time with family and enjoying the beautiful weather and the beach. It was wonderful to have experienced so many new things, and I can't wait to go back someday...hopefully soon :)

better picture...

Here's a better shot of the buzz-cut...

...plus it's just super cute...

First Haircut!

This isn't really a good picture, but I wanted to include it to illustrate the fact that Wyatt does indeed have hair...maybe not a lot, but some.

Lately I've been noticing that Wyatt has a lot of really long baby hairs along with his shorter new hair...so yesterday, with the help of my mom (because there was NO WAY I would have been able to buzz this kid's head by myself) we evened up his head of hair.

He was surprisingly very good during most of the buzzing....

...it was only towards the end that he decided he'd had enough...

Proof that he does have hair:

End result!

I'm going to post another picture later that shows the buzz better...