Birthday at the Beach

January 9th was my 29th birthday. I REALLY wanted to do something cool for it. You see, since I've been married I've had a string of bad birthdays. (I swear, it has nothing to do with being married to Ben.) One year I substitute taught middle school PE on my b-day. What was I thinking??? And another year Ben and I were in the middle of a romantic dinner at a restaurant when he got a call from one of his officers (he was in command) that a soldier on the lam had been "tackled and shackled" downtown. So Ben went back into work leaving me at home alone for the rest of the evening. The all time worst birthday was my big 3-0 when I was 7 months pregnant and had to MOVE on a cold snowy day. My dad had just passed away, and the DAY AFTER returning from the funeral, we got a call from our property manager basically telling us we were being evicted. Long story short was that we had to move as soon as possible, and that day was January 9. So, yeah, I was due for a good birthday.

So I had it all planned out this year. Ben luckily was done with class at 10 a.m., so we basically had the whole day to spend together. The plan was to go biking along a segment of the "17 mile drive." This is a famous and BEAUTIFUL drive along the coast of the peninsula that hugs Pebble Beach and drops off into the quaint little town of Carmel (hometown of Clint Eastwood where he once was mayor). The plan was to pull the girls in the trailer for the "five mile" ride (that's how long the sweet elderly lady at the tourism office told me it was) and end at Carmel beach for a picnic. The forecast was PERFECT, high of 70 degrees. I mean, how often do I get to go to the beach on my b-day? Try NEVER. So, I figured this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The day didn't start exactly as planned. C woke up extremely cranky with a swollen and sore arm (see previous post) so I took her into Urgent Care. After waiting for over an hour the doc casually looked at it and said it probably wasn't broken and she wouldn't do an x-ray since the radiation isn't good for little kids. The problem was that it WAS broken!! So, poor C tagged along on our adventure with a broken arm unbeknownst to us.

And then I got majorly delayed at the pharmacy. I'll spare you the details but it wasn't until after noon that we got going on our escapade. Here are some views I took from my bike, while pedaling mind you!

So hardcore


And you get the point...
but I can't help post a couple more...

So can you believe people actually live along this beautiful drive? They live in homes like this one:
Yeah, some day.
We FINALLY arrived at the beach. It was more of a ten mile ride rather than five. And ten's not that big of a deal, except when you're pulling a one-year-old (although an extremely light-weight one) and a three-year-old and all our picnic supplies. Poor Ben. He really does love me.

Can you believe I got to spend my January b-day at the beach?!?! (If you can't tell, I'm really excited about this).
Just in case you can't see Em in the other pictures