Dallin turned 12 in July. There are some major advantages to having a summer birthday, like never having to go to school on your birthday. Plus it was on a Saturday this year, so Dave was there for homemade donuts.
Dallin's almost always the one who wants to stay home and have a "down day" whenever we have a day off. So naturally I assumed that's what he'd want to do on his birthday. But he decided he wanted to go out and do something fun, so he chose a geocaching hike by the beach. Spencer found a hike in Montana de Oro we'd never done before. The only problem was that the first half of the uphill was sand, and the second half was covered in poison oak. Amazingly, no one broke out in a rash.
The beginning had pretty good views of the ocean.
We forgot the carrier, but Chloe walked most of it just fine.
One of the great things about geocaching is that it helps us discover cool hikes we never would know about otherwise. There were a bunch of geocaches on this hike, so everyone got a chance to find at least one.
We saw a huge rattlesnake right next to the trail (didn't get a picture), but we held super still, and it slithered away. Apparently this year the local emergency rooms have treated a record high number of rattlesnake bites in north county. It's probably due to the drought.
We could see Valencia Peak in the distance. This hike wasn't nearly as steep.
We didn't have time to finish the whole hike because it was getting late and we still wanted to go tide pooling at Hazard Canyon. We forgot to check the tides before we left, but we looked it up on the hike and saw that low tide was right then! We turned around and ran back to the car.
The last time we went to Hazard Canyon was about 13 years ago when my mom fell and broke her wrist and Spencer and his cousin Hannah (ages 3 and 4) were almost swept out to sea. But we figured the kids were old enough now that we were ready to try again. They loved it!
They also run up and down those sand dunes in the distance.
Good choice, Dallin!
Chloe loved the hermit crabs!
She also loved feeding the sea anemone. There were tons of them!
Some people got a little wet. Luckily it wasn't too cold.
Tyler caught a crab! Spencer taught him to grab the claws so it couldn't pinch him.
Afterward, we cleaned ourselves up best we could and went to Hofbrau for fish and chips, clam chowder and french dip sandwiches.
It was a beautiful sunset at Morro Bay!
We got home much later than we planned, but we still managed to make strawberry shortcake (I made the biscuits while everyone showered) and open presents before bed. Everything Dallin opened, he was like, "I wanted this! How did you know?!" I keep a running list :)
He saw this cool leather fedora at the antique store a couple weeks earlier and wanted to buy it, but I convinced him not to; then I went there the next day and bought it. I love doing that!
We had the family over for Texas sheet cake the next day. We had a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday, accompanied by Spencer on his marching trombone and our friend Austin on Dallin's trumpet.
Now for 12 fun facts about Dallin:
1. He still loves to bake, especially cookies.
2. He is strong and fast! He's running cross country again this year.
3. His favorite color is red.
4. He enjoys public speaking; he has been bearing his testimony in church since he was 7.
5. He is extremely honest. He had to fill out practice logs for band last year, and he would never round up his time, no matter what. If he wasn't sure, he practiced extra just in case.
6. He likes to dress up - for church, theme days at school, filming movies, or while playing with his siblings, like pirates, cowboys or gangsters.
7. He still plays imaginative games with the little kids, which they love. See #6.
8. He likes making up games. He even prints out rules and makes game boards and pieces.
9. Now that he is 12, he has received the priesthood at church and passes the sacrament every Sunday.
10. He's great on the computer. He downloads programs and figures out how to do all kinds of impressive things.
11. He works super hard in school and goes above and beyond the minimum. If his English teacher assigns the class to write sentences using vocab words, he makes a power point presentation with pictures and video clips. No wonder he gets straight A's.
12. He is a sweet kid, and I love hanging out with him!
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