Ah, Manchester Beach in Mendocino County.... it is really a lovely place. I highly recommend a camping vacation there. It is very nice - quiet, pretty, safe, clean - that's why we loved it when it was just Mike and me and that's why we loved it this time with Paige and Taylor. We stayed in a rustic little cabin with the only amenities consisting of a locking front door and a lovely little front porch swing - truly perfect!
The smiling faces of toddlers discovering cabins, kindling for the fire, as well as the dirt and sticky fingers that comes with making s'mores for the first time was such a wonderful family experience. I was sooooo pleased and thrilled - okay, smug even - about our perfect little campers Paige and Taylor.
A few pictures are shown below capturing the essence of our overnight camping trip, with more pictures featured above in the rotating slide show.
Swinging on the cabin's porch...Mike, Taylor, Ashley, Paige.
Paige and Taylor exploring the cabin's front porch.
The twins roasting their first marshmallows for s'mores.
Mike lends a helping hand with marshmallows. Yummy!
Walking along the pier at Mendocino's Manchester Beach.
What camping experience is complete without a kiss, dirty face and all?!
Now, aside from just the fun of the camping experience with Paige and Taylor, it was a much-needed getaway for Mike and me too. My husband is so awesome - he's a wonderful provider for his family but too often his work keeps him very, very busy either at the office or on travel - so, it was great to just have the four of us together as a family! I often joke with my friends that "Mike and I are like ships passing in the night" because we just don't get to spend as much time together as a family as we used to; and well communication, what's that? Ha, ha, ha. If we communicate, somedays it's mostly via email and/or FaceBook with a scattering of exchanged voice mails in between. I keep a pretty busy schedule running the twins all over town each week and well, my husband maintains a very busy demanding schedule as well with his job so we're lucky to cross paths every now and then hence the 'ships in the night' analogy. Ha, ha, ha. So, like I said, it was really awesome having this time together as a family this weekend.
Now, we're back and ironically enough, when I connected to my computer this evening, lo and behold, my email inboxes - between my Yahoo and my FaceBook email accounts - were ridiculously full. Plus, messages on cell phone. (How does that happen I thought to myself...I've only been gone 24 hours?) Well, I suppose it's good to be missed by friends!
As I type this post to the blog tonight, Mike is sitting next to me at this moment, marking off his golf balls in preparation for his golf game tomorrow with "the boys" and I am so happy for him to be playing with his buddies tomorrow...as hard as Mike works, he deserves a good, fun break with "the boys" whenever he gets the opportunity!!!
