Beach Adventures

Hello my dear family! Here is a short montage of video clips from our adventures on the beach while we enjoyed California. At the end of the 2.5 minute video, watch for the sea lion "playing" with Jason, Russ, and Boyd in the surf. They had been body surfing with boogie boards when the seal's face would suddenly appear inches in front of Jason's nose, then dip down and swim around him only to appear moments later behind him, almost crawling up his back! It grabbed the wrist strap to the boogie board with it's teeth and tried to take it from Jason.

Russ didn't see the seal right at first, but he did see Jason go all tense and watchful, circling around with the boogie board in front of him, as if keeping it between himself and something else. Russ thought he was playing around until he saw the look on Jason's face. He swam toward him, saw the seal, and whapped it on the head a few times with his boogie board, thinking to frighten it away. No luck - it only kept coming. Boyd was several feet away laughing at the situation.. that is until the seal swam toward him, this time with mouth open and teeth bared.

Those of us on the beach could see that something was up and walked toward them trying to get a better look. We wondered what it was - a shark? And when we saw it was a seal, we were lauging, too. Then the life guard appeared and shouted to the guys to get out of the water. They needed no encouraging! Interestingly, the seal didn't swim away, but followed them out of the water and laid upon the boogie boards. We all stayed back as the life guard instructed us, but when we started back down the beach toward our picnic area, the sea lion chased after us! All of us were hostages to the seal. We froze un til it relented and went back into the water. But each time we made a move to get the boogie boards or pack up our stuff, the seal would emerge again and charge toward us. Only when Brent and the life guard drew the seal away, farther down the beach, were we able to pack up our stuff and leave... laughing all the time! How crazy weird is that? Even the life guard said he has never seen anything like it.

So here is a sampling of what we did in California. Overall it was a great time. The kids got along really well and we all enjoyed each other's company. We all recognized Heavenly Father's hand in our protection and saftey as we traveled and as we "battled" sea lions at the beach! We look forward to a time when we can ALL be together!

Love from Camille