Our Trip to Eureka Part 2: A Guest Post by Rachel and Charlie

We're back!  Do you remember the drill?  I (Rachel) have the black font and I (Charlie) have the blue. ;)

Sunday was a very lazy day.  Mama and her family normally go to church while they're over there, but none of us had slept well, so we all stayed home that morning.  

It rained for most of the day, so we decided to have a pajama day. :)

I noticed the new "Muppets" DVD in the living room, and I remembered how much Rachel loved them, so I suggested that we watch the movie together.

Grandmama had brought her little portable DVD player, so she set it up for us on the bed.  Jess came and joined us too.  Oh, and we went to the kitchen and raided the snacks before starting our movie. :D

I was so excited to finally see this movie!  I'd been wanting to see it since it was first released.  Overall, it was really funny...there were just a few parts that even I, a major Muppet fan, found a little odd.  Especially the "Man or Muppet" song. :}  I think that Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island are still my favorites, but this one had some really fun parts too. :)

Like this one! ;D

When the movie was done, we all fell asleep, surrounded by our snacks and dreaming Muppety dreams. ;)

On Monday, we got to go to the COOLEST STORE EVER!!   It was called "Toy Box" and was absolutely amazing! :)

Charlie and I loved all of the adorable Calico Critter families.  

We'd seen them on Inky's blog, and Tess has one also.  We hoped we could convince Mama to let us pick out a family for ourselves, but she said they were too expensive.  It's probably just as well, because we wanted different families anyway.  I really liked the white mouse family, and Charlie liked the cow family. :}

We almost talked Mama into getting us a set of twins, but it was just too hard to choose one set.  They were all so cute! :)

Next, we moved on to the toy animals.  There were so many of them!

Oh, yeah...I could have easily spent the whole day there! :)

These elephants were really cute.

And then, we got distracted by these really nifty shiny rocks.  You could choose a little sack and fill it up with as many rocks as you could fit in there.  How cool is that?

I started choosing some rocks...

...and so did I.  But then Mama drew our attention to...

...the Iwako erasers!!  They were really cute and a nice inexpensive thing for Mama to buy for us.  We chose a few for ourselves (I chose this cute pink monkey)...

...and we chose some for my sisters, too.

I got this fun little blue Koala. :)

We did some other fun things that day but didn't take any more pictures.  It started raining buckets and Mama didn't want us getting too wet.

Tuesday was a beautiful, sunny day, so we decided to hit the beach again.  Jess was with us again this day, which was nice.  She'd been too tired to join us the day before.

Before we went to the beach, we stopped by Murphy's market in Trinidad for some lunch.

Mama got us a deli sandwich, Cheetos, and blueberries to share.  Belle and Robby were there too, so we let them have some as well.

Then, after lunch we went to "Windan Sea", a special shell souvenir shop that Mama's family has been going to since she was a little girl (except back then it was called "Sea Around Us").  

It was so fun going inside!  There were so many shells, starfish, and other souvenirs to look at.

Jess and I really enjoyed going in, too.  We'd heard about this store before but had never had a chance to visit it when we lived in the Eureka area.  

Charlie and I ended up finding some special souvenirs, but they weren't shells.  More on that in a bit. ;)

At last, it was time to stick our feet in the sand again!  We went to Samoa Dunes and enjoyed the sun and surf.  Since the day was so warm, we'd all worn our swimsuits under our clothes, just in case we felt like getting in the water.

None of us ended up being that brave (although I tried to convince the other two!), so we built a sandcastle instead. :)

Then, when we'd had enough of that, we went for a walk on the beach, staring out at the beautiful waves crashing on the shore.

I asked if the girls were sure they didn't want to try swimming.  They were sure. ;)

Oh, remember what I said about our special souvenirs?  Well, here they are!  See the flowers in our hair?  They're hibiscus flowers made out of foam. :)  Now whenever we wear them, we'll remember our trip. :)

It was such a lovely day.  We didn't want it to end.

But when it did (as all good days must), we sat on the front porch and looked at all of the sea shells we'd found on the beach.

It was really fun comparing all of the shells we'd collected. 

Look at this perfect, doll-sized sand dollar Grandmama found for me!!  Isn't it amazing?

I think Jess found the most sand dollars out of all of us.  They're one of her favorite types of shells, though, so it was perfect for her.  

Well, just one more day to document.  We could technically fit it on this post, but I think we'll save it for another post.  We don't want to overwhelm you with too many pictures. :)

We'll try to get the next post up tomorrow.  Hope you're enjoying hearing about our trip!

Our Trip to Eureka Part 1: A Guest Post by Rachel and Charlie :)

Hello, readers!  Rachel here.  Maggie and Tess said that Charlie and I should do a post or two about our trip.  They thought you all might enjoy seeing pics and hearing about what we did.

Charlie is going to help me do this post.  We decided the easiest way to help you tell us apart was to have Charlie type everything in blue.

Like this!  Hi everybody, it's Charlie!  I'm so excited!  This is the first time I've ever posted anything before.  I hope you enjoy hearing about our amazing vacation! :)

Rachel here again.  Get the idea? ;)  We wanted to start out by saying that this will not be anything like Maggie's incredibly detailed vacation posts from last year.  We're both new to this blogging stuff, and the thought of starting out with such a huge project was way too overwhelming.  So we're basically just going to show you the pics and talk about them.  I hope that works for you. :)

So here we are getting ready to go (Mama and Papa were grabbing the last few things and locking up the house).  I was so excited to be returning to my hometown!  I've really missed it, especially all of the wonderful beaches and the damp, misty weather.  Thankfully, we've had a lot of rain this past year, so that's helped me adjust a bit. :)

Oh, and as you can see, Belle and Robby traveled with us.  Mama wanted them to have a special honeymoon trip, so she thought they might enjoy the coast too.  I felt a little bad for them.  Who wants to spend their honeymoon with other dolls? :}

I can't even tell you how excited I was to go.  I've never really traveled anywhere before, aside from a few trips to Mama's sister-in-law's house in the mountains.  Rachel told me all about the beaches and other fun things to do in Eureka and Trinidad.  I couldn't wait to try...well, everything!! :D

We got to sit in Mama's lap the whole way, so we had a chance to see a lot!  It was a really long trip, but thankfully there was lots of beautiful scenery all along the way to keep us occupied.

Aren't these flowers beautiful?  (Okay, they're probably weeds, but they look pretty!)  I'm not sure what they're called, but I really loved them.

At one point, we had to stop for road construction for about 5 minutes.  I was sooo tempted to climb out the window and explore.

But as you can imagine, I was very concerned about this plan!  What if she couldn't get back into the car in time?  Mama and I both suggested that Charlie stay in the car.  She was a good sport about it, but I could tell she wished she had just gone for it anyway!

Well, maybe a little.  I mean, did you see all that beautiful foliage and everything?  It was amazing!!  Isn't God great?  I mean, He could have made such a boring world for us to live in!  Instead, he gave us lovely mountains, and trees, and rocks, and dirt.   I love it!! :)

Still more driving.  It took so long to get there!!

After a while, we dozed off.  I knew from experience that it would help the trip go faster.

I couldn't stay asleep for long, though.  There was too much to see!

Oh, just amazing!!  I love the contrast of the puffy white clouds against the deep blue of the sky and the dark green of the trees. :)  I'm so glad Mama got pics of this!

By the time I woke up, we were only about 30 minutes away from our destination!  Charlie and I were both really ready to get out of the car!

We're so close!!

As soon as we pulled up to Mama's friends' house, I recognized it from last year.  

It was really nice to get out of the car and stretch out.

We hadn't been there long when a familiar face popped up over the side of the chair.  It was Jess!  Some of you might remember that she and I used to live in the same house over here until last year, when Mama and Grandmama made us a part of their family.  Jess went to live with Grandmama, and even though we live very close to each other, we don't see each other very often.  

I thought it was kind of ironic that we had to travel such a great distance to see each other when we live a few miles away from each other. ;)

We all had a great time visiting and catching up.  Jess informed us that she had arrived with Grandpapa, Grandmama, and Mimi a few hours before we did.

I really enjoyed meeting Jess.  She was super sweet and included me in the conversation as if she'd known me just as long as Rachel. :)

Before long, it was time to start unpacking and getting settled in.  As we went over to our bag, though, we heard a strange noise...like whimpering.

I couldn't believe my eyes when Rontu popped out of the bag!

As soon as he saw me, he barked and wagged his tail excitedly.  

"Rontu, you bad dog!  What are you doing here?" I asked him.  

In spite of my less than friendly words, he kept on grinning up at me.  

I gave up any thought of scolding him and gave him a hug.  I mean, come on, how can you resist that adorable face?  Besides, I'd been really sad about leaving him behind.  I was so glad he'd come, and I knew he'd enjoy the beach just as much as the rest of us. :)  We made sure to call Emma and Hayden to let them know he was with us, though.  My sisters were so relieved.  They were frantic when they couldn't find him!

Our first view of the ocean came the next day.  We went to one of my very favorite beaches:  Moonstone Beach.  It was a lovely day...a bit overcast and cool, but not too cold to play.  Mama's girls ran and splashed in the waves and buried their toes in the sand.

Isn't this rock just amazing?!  It's really ginormous, too...even for humans!

We actually spent a lot of time exploring before we even got to the beach.  There were all of these great rocks to climb and flowers to pick.  And as you can see, Jess and Rontu got to come with us, which made it even more fun!

And of course, Mama had to get the obligatory group picture. ;)  Maggie would be groaning right about now.  There's nothing she hates worse than having to stop and capture a special moment on film.  She'd rather just enjoy the moment!  I'm glad Mama took these pics, though.  I think I might get a framed copy of this one for my room.  Then I'll always be able to remember our special trip.

Ooh, good idea!  Maybe I'll do the same thing too! :)

There were so many different trails to explore!  I could barely keep from jumping up and down, I was so excited! :)  If only our backyard looked like this. ;)

Jess loved the view from this rock.

I enjoyed how green and beautiful everything was.

And there were so many nifty little caves and crevices.  This would be the perfect place to find shelter in a storm.  I could live here for weeks! :)

Still more climbing and exploring...

We found this amazing doll-sized cave in the face of the huge rock (pictured earlier).  Jess was a little bit nervous about going in.  Rachel didn't mind it for a little bit...

...but Rontu and I could have explored it for hours!  Mama didn't like us wandering off by ourselves, though, so we had to stay with the others. 

On our way back from the cave, we saw another great rock to climb.  Rontu got a little distracted, though.

Look what he found!  Some sort of egg.  It looked a little too small to be a seagull egg.  Maybe it was a sandpiper's or something!

"Come on, Rontu!  Catch up!" ;)

This rock was just perfect.  It gave us a wonderful view of the beach.  

Which reminded us that the whole point of visiting a beach is to put your feet in the sand and enjoy the beach itself. ;)

Everything was so breathtaking.  At this point we pretty much stopped getting pictures and just enjoyed ourselves.  We stayed on the beach for about 5 hours that day.  It was a good day to be vinyl, because all of the humans forgot their sunscreen and got horribly sunburned!  What a great way to start a vacation. ;)

This post is getting pretty long, so I think we'll break it up into at least two parts, and maybe even three.  Hope you're enjoying it so far! :)

Talk to you next time, everybody!  (How are we doing so far?)