Let me just start off by saying ****there will be lots of pictures here and I’ll be blogging day by day****

Last week we set out to go camping with the Burris’ for a week at McGrath State Beach which is located between Ventura and Oxnard.  We had to take 3 cars to fit everything and we were taking all our bikes so that was a challenge!  Jacki and I left with Bella and Maddi and we made great time getting there, early enough to scope out the perfect campsite for us. 

We wanted to be close to the beach because (come to find out later) the beach was quite a trek to get to since there is an estuary that runs the entire length of the beach and you have to walk pretty much to the end of it to cross it and then get to the beach.  The sites that were close to the beach didn’t have enough trees to put our hammocks up in so we kept looking.  Driving around it seemed in circles, thinking we hadn’t seen some sites when in fact we had passed them like 3 or 4 times already! LOL

We found one that seemed nice, large area around the fire pit, big grassy area behind, trees to hang the hammocks…but it was a little far from the beach.  So we kept driving around, picking out sites and had to keep driving up to the guard shack to ask if they were taken yet.  They went ahead and reserved site 151 for us while we were still looking for another site.

Meanwhile, Carey and Andy still hadn’t arrived yet so it was up to Jacki and I to pick out the campsite.  We drive back to the sites that were close to the beach and this lady tells us that she’s leaving out of 3 of them.  So back to the guard shack we go to reserve one of them.  Only to find out that we can’t reserve them until the lady checks out of them.  So we waited, and waited, and waited…no lady!  Carey and Andy finally arrive and Andy drives to the site where the lady was and come to find out there was a major red ant problem at that site…so no go! 

We ALL start driving around looking for a site now, running back and forth up to the guard shack to see if they’re reserved, I think this happened like 5 times.  We still had site 151 reserved for us but we thought we could get a much better one.  So the boys decided that we should all go check out 151 and see what it’s like.  Come to find out the boys were happy with it and we pretty much drove around and did all that nonsense for nothing!  LOL 

It turned out to be a good site, a little too much dirt, lots of spiders in the trees (which you will most likely see a spider LO or two from me), a little trek to the beach but all in all a good site!

Here’s the campsite….

Here’s the fire that’s been burning in-between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria for like 3 weeks now.  Everyday we would wake up thinking it was out only to look later in the day and see these HUGE plumes of smoke come outta nowhere!  For a couple of days the wind shifed direction and blew the smoke our way and it was really hazy from it.


Another view of our digs for the week….

First glimpse of how dirty my feet were getting and I was not happy about it! 

******WARNING*******  this photo may make you want to get up and go wash your feet…even if they aren’t dirty!  This was pretty much the norm for the entire week if you were wearing flips, gross huh?  These are Andy’s feet BTW 🙂

This was our first trek out to the beach the day we got there. 

When we got to the estuary Carey took his shoes off and put his feet in the mossy muck!  He looked down only to find two beer bottles so he picked them up and threw them away…doing his part for the environment!

Not sure what Jacki was saying to me but this picture is funny!  Carey always seems to capture the weirdest pictures of Jacki and I.

And for all you arachnophobes out there…here’s just one of the hundreds of spidey friends we encountered in the tree at out site!  At dusk you would look up from sitting at the picnic table and you could see them all moving around, kinda cool but really kinda creepy!

And to round things off for this post Bella in her new Roxy Pink Polka Dot Bikini!