San Simeon

Los Angeles is great. I love living here. Don't get me wrong; I love the beach, the weather, the traffic. Ahem, I mean . . . did I mention the traffic?

So, back in November when we had the rare chance to escape, we headed up the coast to San Simeon where we met my sister Jenni and her family.

Camping + toddlers + cold + family + bubbles + elephant seals (hundreds, literally) + the beach = vacation (hopefully deserved), fun, and not quite enough sleep. Luckily Maggie is a cuddle bug, so sleeping in a tent is not too much of a problem.

We visited Hearst Castle, an incredibly fascinating place, built by eccentric billionaire William Randolph Hearst in the 1920-1930's. Hearst imported art from Rome, Italy, France, etc; some dating back as far as 230 A.D. In the creation of his castle, he was inspired by his childhood tours of Europe, and if you were to erase the palm trees in the picture below, you would probably be more likely to think that the picture was taken, well certainly not in California. One of the pools, styled after a Roman bath house, is mosaic'd with tiles including some made of clear glass fused with gold.

Maggie kind of adored her cousin Lydia. Once, she managed to catch Lydia in a hug. Meanwhile, Lydia called out for help, "Momma, stuck! Stuck!"

A rare family photo. We slipped tube socks on Maggie arms to keep her little hands warm while we were hiking.

I like these two.

The little girls started their lunch (the part that the seagulls did not fly away with) while sitting on rocks that would never have reasonably seemed seat sized. They have such tiny bums. So cute.

Watching a toddler eat a sandwich at the beach is painful.

Maggie is past putting handfuls of sand in her mouth just for the heck of it (at least mostly; she has been going through an dirt eating phase that I have not entirely figured out).

Still, I just turned my head when she used her sandwich to dig in the sand at a beach birthday picnic. I am not sure that she did any sandwich-sand digging on this day, but she has definitely brought a new definition to sand-wich. Ha Ha Ha.

I just want to kiss those wind-burned cheeks.