Sunday was Becky's birthday. And no I'm not going to tell you her age! But I will give you a clue, she hasn't hit 40 yet.

Birthdays are tricky things. We've turned our back on the western culture script of own a house, settle down and have a small family. But when it comes to traditions, like birthdays or Thanksgiving or Christmas, there's uncertainty in how we want to carry those out. Do we want to bring our heritage, our ways of celebrating birthdays into our future lives? What parts do we want to keep, what parts do we want to get rid of?

The nice part is most of our family birthdays are clustered into two months with one outlier -- Thys :) I think he's an outlier in many ways, and while we all love him if you've met him you know what I mean.

Anyways this month was Josiah's and Becky's birthdays. We were able to celebrate Josiah's birthday with friends in Redding. (more on that later) And we were in San Diego for Becky's birthday.

I knew what she wanted for her birthday, so I knew I had that all set (though she found the box in the basement she didn't know what was inside it!). One of my love languages is gift giving, so while we're moving away from the materialistic, collection of things we do tend to add one or two things each birthday. However, we've moved into the practical side of life. Becky got a cordless sander and a necklace hanger so her necklaces don't have to be in a shoebox in a drawer.

And that'll save us time when we are getting ready for church. -- See it's all about practicality ;)

And Love.

While we had the menu all planned out for her birthday we didn't exactly know what we were going to do. After the unfortunate loss of our trailer I kinda wanted to go see a man about a trailer (I've been scouring Craigslist and the local trailer dealerships)  but that isn't exactly the dream birthday plan, despite what our friend Jeremy posted on Facebook. (good one, man!)

Hotel Del Coronado

What she did want to do was go put her feet in the sand/water at the beach.

So we packed up our beach supplies and headed for the Pacific Ocean.

She also wanted to walk around the Hotel Del Coronado.

We got to walk around "The Del" and see the decorations for Christmas as well as the beautiful building and the nice beach front view. While I would have loved to have booked a room for a night just as a gift, I knew it was too rich for my pocketbook, at $300 a night for a standard hotel room (we'd need at least two) plus parking at $40 for the first hour and then $40 for every ten hours after that I would have spent our next two months budget on just one night ;)

Through some bartering I was able to score a free parking spot next to the valet stand :) Cheapest experience anyone has ever had at the Del! But well worth it!

The Approach

The family shot that was photobombed!

Becky and the littles (they're ready for the beach!)

Sweet Alia

View from the balcony... pretty sweet in my opinion!

Coronado Beach

We're big fans of the beach. Becky and I both grew up in West Michigan just a 30 minute drive from Lake Michigan. We both have spent many a day at the beach, and since having kids we planned out three plus days at the beach a year.

Part of the next leg of our journey (Baja Mexico) will involve camping right on the beach.

Lets just say we're really looking forward to that "campground"!

Anyways we had an awesome time, Low tide meant many sand dollars and seashells to find and acquire.

While the water was pretty cold (68 degrees I think) it was still fun to cool off in.

Found a bunch of Sand Dollars and Shells (also, see The Del in the background :)

Zander caught this sand dollar himself, then he proceeded to bury it. Now it's a sandy sand dollar.

Not so much a fan of the chilly water Zander ran ahead of me to our beach cabana to warm up in the shade. We came prepared for beaching it! #loveit

Family on the beach

A seagull dropped this nearby, glad he didn't hit us on the head!

And there was glitter, so much gold glitter spread everywhere in the water and on the beach. Not sure what the story is here, but it was fun to watch. it made everything sparkle. See for yourself:

https://youtu.be/beMKXIh8fSw

Birthday Selfies

After returning home and eating salads for dinner Becky and I were able to take the dogs out for their evening walk. Time spent alone together is rare and treasured. So what did we do? Take selfies :)

It's like we had a wedding photographer or something :)

Having a little fun.

Our campground... pretty sweet place to stay. To find Gracie, look for the big green bush kinds in the middle of the picture. Gracie is the one just above that.

Pictures made for your Pinterest! Tap the pinterest Icon that shows up to pin this to a board.