Pretty posers

The kids, were supposed to pose with the Golden gate in the background..

Jr. who is a pro, just turns on "smile on tap".

The little one on the other hand, was not in her mood. She was toying with daddy. On the one hand she wanted to pose for him, but on the other, she was pissed off that he wanted her to distract herself from all the things happening on the vista point and look at the same lens she has been staring at, at various vista points! The expression on her face, priceless.

The next day at Carmel by the Sea, she wanted to get her feet on the sand. While all the other three females in our entourage stayed put inside the van, sighting obvious reasons like temperature, wind speed etc., the little one walked out of the van with me and San's uncle, walked all the way to the sea and walked back. It was very windy and a little chilly and she wasn't wearing her jacket. On the way back to the van, we walked past a rock and she said "Daddy, put me on the rock and take my picture!"

and I did!

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Beach heaven!

As most of you must know by now, Daddy's favorite spots are beaches. There is something to be said about the sand, the water, the waves, the vast expanse of sky, the people, the sundal(substitute with cheese sandwich, soda, home made mullu murukku or what have you) and the experience is usually a great one!

Last week a friend told us that he took his kids to this beach in San Mateo with the backwater or creek and the kids had lots of fun! We had been to this place once before, five years ago to show MIL california beaches on her first visit to the US of A. Unfortunately we did it in January when it was really cold and there was no one at the beach.

This time, different story. We went there(San Gregorio State Beach) and the cousin family joined us within an hour after we settled down. It was a lot of fun. The San Gregorio Creek joins the sea after making a couple of bends. The water is only a few inches deep and the flow is minimal. The water in the estuary is also warmer than the sea water.

The San Gregorio beach is right at the intersection of route 84 and route 1. I always take 84 to hit route 1 instead of the 92 because it is less windy and more scenic and today for the first time we stopped at Alice's restaurant (a very popular place with a lot of history) and had coffee, ice cream and snacks. It was wonderful!

Once the little one got in the water, there was no stopping her!

The original plan was to go to the Santa Cruz boardwalk and that said, we were definitely not packed for a beach trip. We winged it anyways, thanks to a few towels and the Sun shining brightly on us.

Our fun filled afternoon came to an abrupt end when the Beach Patrol came and asked us to leave. A helicopter was to land on the beach to do an emergency medical transport.

So we rushed out of the beach. All said and done, a day well spent!

On a side note, Wishing all of you a wonderful "Tamizh New year" (yep, starts tomorrow!).

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Goa beaches..

We spent three days in Goa. Except for San, the rest of us are seeing Goa for the first time..

Words usually fail to describe anything this beautiful.. so I will stick to the pictures.

Culva beach

The dolphin sighting boat rides at Coco Beach

Jr. meets Fanta for the first time, in her India trip. She loved her!

Calangute beach..

Baga beach. (after a long time I saw a bunch of Brits, Desis and West Indians play cricket together, last time was in a field in Philadelphia!)

Vagator beach (I liked this one the most).

Lived it.. loved it!!