Thursday, January 17, 2013

Down the Street


I haven't been great about posts on the outings that take place just out our front door.  With baby number two, we've had smaller windows of time in which we can get out of the house between naps. Often photos are the last thing on my mind as we make the most of our precious time and soak it all in.  I feel very grateful to live in a place where I can quickly find so many sources of beauty and fun for us to appreciate just for the bit of time we have. A 15-20 minute drive often makes an outing not worth it, after the time it takes going through all the steps to get ready (feedings, diapers, dealing with tantrums etc etc).  So having awesome spots for kids just minutes away makes a huge difference to my quality of life. We can get out and enjoy ourselves, but still get back in time for Oscar's nap so that we have the benefit of a well-rested child.  It keeps me sane to get out of the house and it lifts my soul if that place happens to be beautiful and fresh. One such place is Ocean Beach, and in particular, Kelly's Cove, found literally blocks from our doorstep.

Lately on a couple of Jer's days off we've had that small window to get out, and I grabbed the camera. Jeremy is pretty content to hang out at the beach any time.


It seems there has been quite a lot of driftwood washed up these days.  Someone took the liberty to build a hut, perfectly Finn-sized.

Since we don't have a dog, we've been using Oscar to fetch sticks.

There is important work to be done with sticks, after all.

Finn has been using his collection of diggers a lot. He has three big ones that we take to the beach, and he has named all of them.  "Busy-busy" is the yellow Tonka digger that he received at Oscar's birth.  "Tim" is his beloved backhoe excavator, which he never lets too far out of his sight.  "The Green Machine" is his John Deere tractor/digger.  Finn usually keeps one eye on his digging project, and the other on Oscar.  He's actually concerned about Oscar eating sand and sticks and likes to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.


  Oscar is overjoyed at this new world of sand play. He's nonstop, whizzing about on all fours, lunging into the holes we dig and double-fisting sand into his mouth.



Digging holes has been a favorite activity lately.

And one in which all can participate. Every little fistful counts!


Oscar hasn't quite figured out all the tools at his disposal, but he's working on it.


When Finn sidles up to us and starts gazing off into the distance, we know he's pretty spent. It's kinda nice that we don't have a big journey ahead of us to get back home, what with with gritty, chafing sand-filled drawers/diapers and all.

One of our favorite things about Ocean Beach is the lovely view of it from above at Sutro Heights Park, which is just up the hill and a few blocks down from our house. You can see pretty much the whole 3.5 mile length of the Ocean Beach coastline. Finns loves this spot to run around, as well.  I could do a whole separate post on our love of this spot. So perhaps I will!



A post about Ocean Beach would be remiss without mention of its surf, one of the primary reasons we chose real estate where we did. Unfortunately since having kids, I can no longer sit with fixed gaze/ camera and watch Jeremy catch and ride the waves. I have little ones with no fear of said waves, who must be kept in check. But you can see some clean little peaks in the pics below.

I just stumbled upon some pics from a beautiful sunset walk on the beach back in 2011, when Finn was the baby getting gritty knees. I remember this evening well....it was so magical.



Not a bad spot down the street. I will always love the little pieces of our history spent here.


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