Heads or Tails

You know what day I really thought my baby should (would) be born?

June 1st.

You see, Avery's birthday is December 1st, Penny's is September 1st, and I thought that the Universe would throw me a bone and let my baby's birthday be June 1st.  I was full term, due on the 11th, it would have been perfect.  It was a Saturday, Ken was home, we only had a swim meet to get to.

Unfortunately?  No contractions.  Nothing.  We dashed out of the door for the kids second swim meet in Wasco and got there JUST in time for their races. In our rush to get out the door, neither Ken or I had brought our phones, we had no snacks or waters or anything.  Just my purse, his wallet, two children in swimsuits with no shoes or cover ups, and one in clothes and shoes that didn't match.  The kids only had one race to swim, so I knew we'd be home in no time.  We pulled in to the meet just in time for them to swim and we were out as fast as we were in.

And then we get back in the car and my husband says, "You know, we're already thirty minutes closer to the beach.  Lets go to the beach today."

To which, I thought, "No way."
I'm having a baby today.  I can't go to the beach. Also we don't have phones.  Or sunscreen.  Penny doesn't have a swimsuit.  We have no snacks.

And then I said, "I don't know, should we??"

We debated back and forth for a while, all the while driving toward the beach.  When we got to the intersection of the 5 freeway (our last chance to go home), Ken says, "We should just go home and do projects around the house."

He sounded so defeated about it.  Also I was having no contractions and knew in my heart of heart that I wasn't going to go into labor.  And we had absolutely nothing on the calendar for the first time in months, so I said, "Lets flip a coin.  Heads we go to the beach, tails we go home and do projects around the house."

As luck would have it, we flipped a head!  We were off to the beach!  We crossed OVER the five, toward the beach.  We decided to go first to Hearst Castle, since it's a place we'd wanted to go for a while.  We had to stop at a Ross store (literally the only place with clothing on the little freeway we were driving on) to buy clothes and shoes for the big kids and a swimsuit for Penny.  We were off on a spontaneous adventure, the very best kind! And with no phones!  We were officially unplugged.

Avery, on the bus up to the castle.




We did a tour of the guest houses and kitchens.  We'll have to go another time to get to the Great Rooms, because our waits to see those would have taken our whole day and we were in a hurry.  Plus I'm so much more interested in the kitchens anyways.  But we'll be back.  Such an interesting tour.

The wine cellar.





Excuse the photography.  No flash in there, and I was great with child. Plus it took all of our energies to help our kids remember to stay on the path and not touch the artifacts.



Ornate ceilings.







My dream kitchen.











Ken's getting ready to whip us up some lunch.







Beautiful flowers on the grounds.







I'll speak for myself when I say I was ready to go launch my pregnant body into that pool and stay forever.





This was the only child who would let me photograph her in front of the pretty door.  Such a willing participant, don't you think?





I wish my photos could do justice to this pool.  If I had all of the wealth in the world, I would stay in the little red-doored- wood shingled roof- house that I'm living in.  But I would build one of these pools in my back yard.  The entire room and pool are done with tiny little tiles.  It's breathtaking.  And the water.  Again, I wanted to launch my pregnant self into that pool and stay forever.





Bus back down to the visitors center.



The castle, now in our distance.



Checking out which beach we were going to head to next.









We made it!





No, she's totally not naked over there.



Huge seaweed kept them busy for such a long time.













The tide started to come in, those waves were starting to really crash and make me nervous. But no worries, no kids were harmed.



Corban hasn't met a rock he wouldn't like to scramble.



Dad spotting.



Penny's kind of scramble.



After the beach, we pulled into a sweet little town and got the most amazing Chili Rellianos I've ever eaten. I'm not exaggerating, they were amazing.  We got them "to-go" and sat at a park watching the kids play while we ate them and gushed over our good fortune-- we just happened upon this restaurant-- the very one with the most amazing rellianos ever.  After dinner we mozied over to a Coldstone and the kids all got to pick ice cream and they pretty much could not believe THEIR good fortune.  What happened to their parents?  I'm pretty sure they have never had such a perfect day.

This is what success looks like at our house:



We pulled home around 10:00 p.m. and felt like we had been gone for a month. Things I learned, though.  When you leave home without snacks or water, you will have to stop multiple times in a day to acquire snacks and water.  So much more often than you would think you would have to do. I never really understood the value of what I do every day-- packing snacks and waters galore for every time we leave the house-- until I hadn't done it.  The trip was such a blast, and was just what we needed to get our summer kicked off with a bang.  Less than one week later, we would have our brother (more foreshadowing, see?).