Ad-Ventur(a)

A very good friend of our recently went in with partners on a vacation condo in Ventura County (about 80 miles north of us and right on the beach. ... like RIGHT on the beach) and she asked us if we wanted to join her and her two kids for the weekend. Um. ... yes please. We headed up Friday evening after work, trying to beat the setting sun, which we did just barely. I will say that Southern California is a difficult place to live. It's overpriced, way too crowded and filled with some "difficult" people to deal with. If we weren't born and raised here with a boat load of family I doubt we would have hung around. But there's something about going to the beach in mid-February and tanning that seems to make all those challenges just melt away. And with the "summer season" over there were no tourist what so ever to fight with over sand. We had practically the whole beach to ourselves. Plus, we were spending some really great time with dear friends we don't see as often as we like. They live about 5 hours north of us and we haven't seen her kids (boy and girl) since before the twins were born. Apparently her 3 year old son is already "destined" to marry one of the girls so we broke the ice with a group bath on the first night and got a couple lovely shots that I'll keep private until their wedding reception slide show. The girls traveled well, as usual, and slept the whole way home so Gina and I took a romantic drive down the coast, through Point Hueneme, Malibu and Santa Monica - which was appropriate since Valentines Day is tomorrow and we have nothing "romantic" on the schedule - Gina has to teach tomorrow night so it's just me an my other "ladies". Ok. That's enough "'s for one post so I'm going to call it quits and just make those snow covered folks jealous with some pics.