Toilet Bowl Cleaning Camp 2011 - Day 4

aka CZ Adventure-cation 2011

Last but not LEAST, on the way home we took a little de-tour over to the ocean to find some tide-pools.

Point Reyes was the destination and we quickly found Duxbury Reef Beach, known for its abundance of tide-pools and the low tide was right around the corner.

We hooked up with Sun-Inn and Co. again and off we went to discover the life within
 ... the tide pools :)

FOUND THEM!!!

COOL!

Green Sea Anemones everywhere, nice and stickyyyy,  lots of Hermit Crabs, Purple Shore Crabs, Barnacles, Black Turban Snails and CA and Blue Mussels ... and thanks to GP, who bought us a Field Guide we could even identify them on the spot.

Hello little Crabby-Crab

Young Ocean Explorer

These two pools looked like lungs to me :)

The kids had SO MUCH FUN! 
They could have spent hours and hours hanging out there and playing with the crabs and snails.

The Founding Father and Mothers of:

Snail City

Modern Snail Transportation

Bundled up!!!

We left the beach and our adventure friends and set off to pick up Dork from Dog Hotel & Resort.
On the way we saw these guys and stopped to have a look ...

And yet another "drive-by-shooting"
Sun Inn and Co. stopped by too and we said "Good Bye and THANK YOU" again.

And this sums up the CZ Adventure-cation of 2011.

We had FUN-FUN-FUN!!!
... and can't wait to hit the trail, river and beach again.

No worry Mother Nature, we'll be back soon ... like in TOMORROW :)

Another Adventure-cation has been scheduled for next weekend and L decided to take a b-day trip to Tahoe, to see the Salmon Run, instead of having a party ... YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We'll join so many of our friends, who have chosen to forego the big party thing and instead spend the money and time on a fun family outing.

I am so excited about this!!!
No more planning, inviting and worrying about the location, food, entertainment ... now it'll be just a few days of CZ time at a location chosen by the b-day-person (and within the means of our wallet ... sadly that will cut out my wish for Hawaii ;)

So let the hiking, tracking, back-packing, camping and all that comes with it begin!!!

The FAMOUS Bay Area is our backyard ... we'll be busy for a while.

Toilet Bowl Cleaning Camp 2011 - Day 3

aka  CZ Adventure-cation 2011

Getting up at 7:00 AM was HARD after a long day of "safariing", swimming in the pool and watching the "Smurfs"on the BIG screen with the whole fam.

BUT yet another exciting adventure was calling our name ...

River Rafting here we come!!!

                                              

And look who's going to join us 

... Liam and Jada with mom and dad in tow! 

AWESOME!!!

"Lost and Found"

And off to the River we march ...

The boats are waiting ...

... and the river is calling!

Our tour guides all smiles.

One happy canoe-buddy!

Jada the Mermaid

The scouts were WAY ahead of us and had decided to wait for us so we could catch up.

L was on board with GP and paddled the ENTIRE day with him alone! 

She did GREAT!!!

 ... and GP taught her a thing or two about water and canoeing. 

She is a PRO now!

brrrr .... COLD!!!

Lunch Break

Liam's canoe sand/rock sculpture

Jeff knows how to travel in style!!!

LOTS of puppies were on the river that day.
I wonder how Dorkie would have liked it ...

The kids had TONS of fun floating down the river.

Jeff and Liam in full paddle action.

Lulu hard at work!

More floating done by the big kids ...

... so the little kid wanted to have a piece of the action too!

With GP and Papa on hand Lulu made her first floating attempts.

.. a little more daring ...

... et voila 

... one floating Lulu coming up!

AWESOME! 

She totally did it!!!

I spotted this little fella lonesome and forgotten along the river. It looked like it had seen better days ...

Just hanging ...

 This is a "float by shooting" 

"It's a true story!"

(inside joke for SI :)

And when it gets too hot in the boat ... you just jump into the nice, cool river and relax!

Good times!!!

Ohhh and after almost 5 hours on the river even the best little canoe buddy gets tired ...

... and sometimes even falls ASLEEP while mom and dad paddle and paddle and paddle :)

After-Rafting-Dinner-Party

This surely was an AWESOME experience and we still are talking about how much fun we had.

Thank you Sun-Inn and family for introducing us to this wonderful pass time and for the great day we had with you guys!

It'll be hard to top this one, after the caves and the river ... REALLY hard to top!
But I double dare you!!!  :)

This was our first family river rafting adventure but surely NOT our last!

When we finally returned to the hotel we fell dead-tired into the "sack" and it was "lights out" early for everyone.

BUT wait, there was more!!!

Come back tomorrow to see what the final day of our Toilet Bowl Cleaning Camp had in store for us.
It was the perfect ending to a perfect CZ Adventure-cation.
So stay tuned!!!