Our week at the coast! (Part one)

For our family vacation this year we decided to go spend a week at the coast. Charley has never been to the ocean so we thought this would be a great time to take her. We ended up renting a house right off of highway 1 just outside of Pescadero. We had wonderful weather and had so much fun hanging out at the beach and exploring some of the quaint coastal towns.

We arrived on Sunday night and it was dark but when we woke up on Monday we were awestruck by the beautiful view!

The view from our bedroom!

View of the house from the private beach below.

Charley meets the ocean!

Charley quickly learned that the ocean was very cold! But she loved playing in the sand and exploring the beach looking for sea shells.

 

Playing in the sand!

Charley wasn't the only one who had fun in the sand. Daddy built a lot of fun sand creations too!

Daddy's starfish and island creations

This reminded me of Goonies!

Here are some sand castles that we built with the sand molds that Gaga bought for Charley.

 

Charley pretending to take pictures of the ocean

A beautiful sunset from the house

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Pop's 85th Birthday

On September 27th Pop turned 85!

We drove to the Bay Area on Sunday the 29th to celebrate with him on our way to the coast.

Pop's 85th birthday!

Pop with his good friend and neighbor Winkie

 

Steve and Lou enjoying Pop's party!

Some family pics at the table

Mmmmm Lemon Meringue is Pop's Favorite!!!

 

We decided to make Pop a special treat for his birthday present........

Brownie Bites!

Happy 85th Birthday Pop! We love you!

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Date Night

A few days after our chickens arrived, Grandma came to visit! Charley had so much fun playing with Grandma and showing her our new chickens. Darrin and I even got to slip away for a few hours one evening and attend a community event. We came home to find two giggling girls!

Thanks Grandma for watching Charley!

She had lots of fun and we did too!

 

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The Great Chicken Project

On September 9th we finally got chickens! This chicken project took us most of the summer! It started in May when I thought it would be a great idea to convert an old dog kennel on our property into a chicken run.

Here is a picture of the old dog kennel,

the tarp on top was almost the death of our project!

 

We spent the entire month of June converting the dog kennel into a chicken run.

Raking up pine needles is hard work!

By the end of June we were ready for chickens! But unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans and blessed us with two days of heavy rain the last week of June!

Remember that tarp....

Our dog kennel after the rain!

 

The rain pooled up on the tarp and the weight of the water bent the metal frame! We now had to fix the metal frame and come up with a new plan for the roof. We had no idea how much of a setback this would be but in the process we realized that our original hen house was much too small so we were able to sell it and found a local guy who built us a new one.

We had to get the metal frame welded and found a local guy to do that and then Darrin found a pitched roof at Tractor Supply that was designed for a dog kennel.

After all was said and done we finished our chicken project shortly after Labor Day and on September 9th a local friend of mine brought us 8 chickens. (We actually traded a baby carrier for the chickens!)

Our New Hen House

(Darrin's Aunt gave us the sign)

Here are some of the ladies in their new home

Here is our first egg!

 

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