weekly wonder: twenty-five

My parents came in for a visit and just left this afternoon.  It was an amazing visit and it is so much more fun to show off California in the summer and fall.  The weather is warm and perfect and there are lots of things to do and places to see!

I took my parents for our usual Santa Monica and Venice Beach hand out and of course we visited the Santa Monica Promenade for a little shopping.  We also went to visit a new place.  The Malibu Sport Fishing Pier.  While this pier is not nearly as commercialized and popular as the Venice and Santa Monica Pier, it has a lot to offer and is really beautiful.  Just 10 minutes North of our home, down the Pacific Coast Highway is a small pier with lots of fishing action.  There is also a lot of surfing, swimming and paddle boarding.

Once we parked at the pier we decided that it would be fun to check out the beach first, even though we did not bring our swimsuits.  Well, it wasn't necessarily the smartest idea because this past weekend Los Angeles had been under large wave and high tide advisory.  Everything seemed fine and dandy at first.  We played on the rocks and walked on the sand and enjoyed the calm.  Being the smart mom that I am, I told my dad that he should dangle Noah's feet in the water while waves came through on the beach. Well it was right then that the tide started coming through and rushed up on all of us.  Where our toes and ankles had once been barely covered in water it was now up to our knees and moving up the coast fast. HAH! Thankfully we didn't have any gear with us, so we all just ran up the steps quickly to higher ground.  A little later the tide washed out and there were lots of people on the beach.  From what I felt in just that brush with the water (66 degrees)... it was a little too cold for my taste! BRRR!

Anyways, since walking along the beach hadn't worked out too well, we decided to go check out the pier.  It was cool to see lots of active fishermen working their fishing poles and we could also get a really great view of both North and South of Malibu and we could view the mountains and the coastline. We could even see the swarms of surfers (newbie and pro) paddling in and out of the water.  It was really fun.

We decided to walk around a bit from there and went up to a fun shopping center called the Malibu Country Mart.  We had lunch, played at the playground with Noah and did a little shopping.  It was really pleasant.  After all of that it was time to take Noah home for a good long nap since he had been having so much fun and really couldn't settle down while we were out.

It was an absolutely fabulous adventure! Hoping we can check other parts of Malibu really soon!