Our Weekend: Aurora's first time at the beach!

What bad timing, ha! Oh well, every picture can't be perfect!

First off, this post was supposed to go up last night but it was too hot in the house so I grabbed my new baby monitor (more on that another time) and all my gear and started writing and doing some other computer related things outside. Of course I had tried to be a smarty pants and do everything off the internet on wordpad (to conserve battery life, no less). Well, I never unplug my laptop, so like a dummy I didn't pay attention to the battery and a couple hours later, I lost everything I had been working on. So frustrating! Sorry for the wait, but I lost all motivation to rewrite it last night.

Anyway... without further ado, our beach adventure!

On Saturday my roommate/bestie and I decided to make beach plans for the next day. Normally we'd take a drive down to the ocean but it's a pretty long and involved day and since bestie works all the time that trip seemed a little daunting. Plus there's not much shade at the ocean beaches and I have a tiny pale baby to worry about. We decided to go to a local lake instead but as the night wore on I liked that decision less and less. See, this lake doesn't exactly have the best reputation for cleanliness and I was really hoping to take Aurora in the water with us. Well, I started going through the blog comments to make sure I hadn't missed any when I noticed one of the old photos I had posted of me and my childhood friend R. at the beach. 

That's when it dawned on me... Wallum Lake!
The place we practically lived at every summer when I was growing up.
What a perfect place for Aura's first beach trip! 

I mentioned it to my roommate and she agreed that it sounded like a good plan so early Sunday afternoon we packed up our picnic and baby gear and headed out. The drive was great and I somehow remembered the way exactly (this turned out to be a good thing because the GPS thought we were trying to go to the other side of the lake). I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised since I've made that drive hundreds of times. I was a little worried that maybe it had changed a bit since I'd been there last. It'd been over 10 years and everything else had changed, it only made sense that it would. However, from the minute we drove up it was pretty obvious that nothing had. It was still only $5 to park, the park ranger trucks were the same as I remembered and even parked in the same place (Wallum Lake is in the middle of a state forest). We parked the car and headed down to the beach area which was alive with families and barbecues and it was like I was a little kid again. Even the ice cream truck that I remembered getting countless treats from was parked in it's old familiar spot. Apparently that place is stuck in some strange wrinkle in time and I couldn't be happier about it. 

  Aurora played on the blanket for a bit with a bunch of toys, it was so nice to be able to just let her go a little and let her explore. It was nice and shady and not too hot, perfect beach weather! Our swimming lessons seem to be paying off because she had a blast playing in the water with us... I wish I had pictures but we were having too much fun, I forgot all about the camera!

After a nap for Aura (a swim for me) and some ice cream I strapped the baby on and we for a little hike to one of my favorite places in the world! The park rangers used to run nature programs for kids at the beach where you could go on short guided tours of the woods. I was a bit apprehensive but the very first time I went out there the ranger showed us the Cedar Swamp trail. I was in love immediately. I spent tons of time out there once I was old enough to start taking walks on my own. I used to love how tiny all the huge trees made me feel and how quiet it was.

When I was looking online to see how long the drive would take I came across an article saying that this trail was a pretty rare find because of the tree and swamp combination. That made me even more excited to show it off! Come to find out I was totally wrong about what I thought were the actual cedars. 

These are not cedars. Who knew?? ...Apparently not me.

The real cedars that the trail was named for are pretty unimpressive by comparison, they just look like tiny pine trees. It was a little strange to discover that the amazingly tall, skinny and sometimes sideways trees I loved so much were not what made the place famous, but it doesn't change the way I feel about it.

Amazing, isn't it?

After our little hike, we ate some food and hung out for awhile longer. Then the beach was starting to close up so we decided to head back. On the way home I remembered how much I loved the drive. Sometimes living in the city it's easy to forget how nice it is to drive down a totally tree lined road towards a green horizon with no annoying billboards or ugly buildings. I've been feeling pretty nostalgic these days (post pregnancy side- effect?) and this was the perfect time to take a trip somewhere that holds so many good memories for me.

All in all it was a pretty amazing day and I couldn't have asked for a better first beach memory to make with my little girl...