Friendcation

If there's something Orelia loves more than vacation, it's her friends.  She was beyond thrilled to host two of her best friends up for a day trip while we were at Stinson Beach.

Over one of our weekends we had the most incredible weather, and so I suggested to a couple friends that it might be worth the very twisty and somewhat nauseating drive to come up for the day.

Orelia and I loved spending a warm and sunny morning with some of our friends.

One of my goals of the trip was for Orelia to become comfortable enough with the ocean that she could fill up a bucket with water.

Grandma and Noni had worked with her the previous week to get her comfortable with "toe tickling" in the waves.

But it was truly seeing one of her brave friends in the water that convinced Orelia should could be brave too.

Once she got over her fear she was having the time of her life.

We literally had to drag her away form the fun of the waves when it was time for lunch.

When we weren't ankle-deep in water we practiced our throwing skills.  Mommy is pretty strict when it comes to throwing, so Orelia was thrilled to finally find a place where throwing rocks was encouraged.

The utter jubilation just radiated out of her as she ran into and out of the ocean over and over again.

We are so grateful our friends made the visit to teach Orelia how much fun the ocean can be.

After hot dogs and ice cream we said goodbye to our friends and settled down for a very long nap.  All the wave-jumping and bucket-filling is exhausting!