Pajaro Dunes

Many schools in our area now start school mid August.  Luckily for us we don't start until after Labor day.  So at the very last minute Jim and I planned a trip to the beach.  Just south of Santa Cruz and a little north of Monterey is Watsonville.  In Watsonville is this little hidden community called Pajaro Dunes.  There are single family homes, townhouses, and condos.  Many of which are right on the beach.  We were able to get a condo with a gorgeous ocean view.  Normally on labor day weekend the beach is very busy.  I think there were 2 other families on the beach near us that weekend.   In the mornings and also during the day the shoreline was littered with sand dollars.  I think my kids collected at least 100 of those things.

The first night we headed into Watsonville to find some dinner.  There was a farmers market so we decided to park our car in a hot dog stand parking lot and get something for the adults, and then get hot dogs for the kids.  We only planned to be gone 20 min to grab something to eat, but of course it took longer.  Just as we were coming back to the car I see a tow truck!  He had the car hooked up and was just about to load it onto his truck.  Luckily the guy was nice and after paying about $100 the car didn't get towed.  We missed reading the multitude of signs that said parking for hot dog stand only...  The tow truck guy tells me he comes to that lot often.  Not the best way to start the vacation, but it could have been worse if we didn't show up before the car was actually towed.

That next morning we took a family bike ride and found this awesome climbing tree.

Then we headed to the beach.

 A few friends joined us.  Camille found a friend to become a sand monster with.

At the end of the first day Allison didn't want to walk back so the boogie board became a sand sled.  Worked awesome!

That night we all gathered around the fire for some s'mores.  As anyone can tell you the Santa Cruz area gets COLD at night.

We headed back to the beach the next day.  The kids got some quality time in with Dad.

More s'mores!

We used some of those sand dollars we found to make a sand castle.

We even saw some starfish on the beach.  I've never seen one this color before.

We have already planned to go back there for Thanksgiving and 4th of July next year.