The Luckiest Dude on the Planet...

 This is me.  The luckiest dude on the planet!

Why am I the luckiest dude on the planet?  Well you see, just minutes earlier we had turned the car back in to the rental place, headed straight to the bathrooms, and then proceeded to pass through the security screening. Weston had packed his Gatorade bottle full of sand at the beach so he could bring some sand home. I told him to put it in the bin with my keys and phone so that they could see that it was sand and not a hazardous bottle of water they don't allow through. The TSA lady doing the screening flagged the sand and had to call for back up. The back up guy arrived fast since he was only standing 3 feet away observing the whole situation. He grabbed the bottle of sand, shoved it against the wall, handcuffed it ,and then escorted it over to the chemical analyzer machine and began to process it. Weston asked me what he was doing. I told him that the guy was testing the sand to make sure it was really from the beach and that it wasn't some kind of counterfeit sand made in China. The TSA backup guy got a laugh out of that one and eventually let it through once the machine told him it wasn't fake sand. We then headed to the gate where I sat down and came to the realization that I am the "LUCKIEST DUDE ON THE PLANET!"

Why am I the luckiest dude on the planet?

Well you see, we had just spent the day at the beach and here I was thinking back about how much fun we had just had.

Here is how the day went...

We woke up early and headed to the airport.  It was 6:30 a.m. We were going to the beach for the day.  We got there in plenty of time to get our seat assignments.  Either Heidi has reserved seats or some other cosmo universal alignment is trying to tell her something cause this is the 3rd time she has been assigned 6C as her seat.  If you remember from one of my prior posts, I was assigned 6C once and it turned out to be hilarious.

Once we boarded the plane we flew for about 45 minutes and then landed in Southern California.  Upon getting off the plane, I peeked into the cockpit and was a bit surprised.  The pilot looked pretty young but apparently knew how to fly the plane since he got us there safe and on time.  

Upon arrival we proceeded to the rental car counter, picked up the car, and headed to the beach.  The weather was nice with 78 degrees and sunny as the forecast.  We got to the beach and within minutes the kids were out in the water.  Pretty soon they realized the water was COLD!  So they opted for playing in the sand and pretty soon the shovels were out and the digging began.

I asked them what they were building and Weston said in a matter of fact tone, "we are building a hot tub to warm up in."  They kept digging, and digging, and digging until they were done. 

Once they had their hot tub built to spec, they were determined to fill it with water.

Even though the hot tub was a brilliant idea, the logistics of the water supply prevented the tub from filling with actual hot water.  But none the less, they had fun playing in it until tropical storm Alvin came along and created really big waves that wiped out the hot tub.  After that, Alea came up with a great idea and decided to switch to geothermal conduction heating as her source of warmth.  She hired a few local unemployed engineers to help build her geothermal plant. 

Her idea really worked out until the local surfers came along.  Apparently she had unknowingly built her geothermal warming apparatus right in the middle of their favorite local surfing hot spot.  Fortunately she didn't prevent the local surfers from missing any waves.

After a few hours at the beach we were all pretty hungry and decided to venture out to find some local cuisine.  On the way we found a great place to go climbing and spent a few minutes scaling the web of no fear or what ever it was called. 

We finally found a great place to eat pizza by the slice and enjoy the fine art in the establishment.

 

With food in our bellies and more sights to see we ventured along to find the Balboa Bakery and get Balboa Bars!  What are Balboa Bars you ask?  Only the best ice cream bars dipped in hot melting chocolate and then dipped again in your favorite topping of choice.  Heidi and Weston chose Oreo cookie as their topping.

 Alea chose to go the healthy route and picked a chocolate covered banana dipped in sprinkles.

After experiencing the bliss of a Balboa Bar, we proceeded to walk along the board walk and see the sights.

We found the carousel and hopped on for a spin to catch the view from the top.

Pretty soon our time at the beach was about up and we headed back to the airport.  Alea sat quietly in the back of the car reflecting on her day at the beach as she stared out the window.  We were speechless that she was speechless.  After all, she's probably going to be a talk show personality some day!

Upon arrival at the airport, we turned the car back in, headed straight to the bathrooms....