Ocean Trip

Yesterday I went to the ocean with my church's college and career group. A friend and I were the coordinators of the trip, and up until yesterday we were really worried about how it would all play out. When we first decided to plan the trip, I was supposed to invite girls, and he was going to invite the guys. I invited nearly 10 girls, and only two of them made it! Up until the day before the trip no girls were going to make it. I was really really disappointed, but I kept telling Jeff (the friend who helped coordinate it) that I would not go if I couldn't find a girl to come with me. Around 6:00 that evening, Anne and Mandy called me and said that they would make it. Yay!! What a relief! We planned on getting to the church by 8:00am and leaving by 8:30. But of course, the one time my being on time is super important, I was late. It turned out okay though. After everyone was assembled at the church (9 people came) we piled into two cars and headed down to Starbucks. After coffees were purchased, we started out. After a loooonnnnggggg and windy drive we finally were there. It was really chilly when we first got there, and it was also really foggy out. At first I was disappointed, but I kept being told that the clouds would lift around 12:00--and they did. After the clouds lifted it was beautiful out!! Before we went down to the water, every one went shopping. We walked around for a while, looking at all the cute shops and Jeff and I took pictures of all the beautiful scenery. Eventually people were mocking us: "Hey, do you want to take a picture of this flower pot? It's tooootttaaaallllyyyy beautiful." "Oh, look at this rock...wow!" It was pretty humorous, actually. During our shopping trip we walked into a taffy shop. The entire store was full of buckets of taffy. Taffy in every flavor imaginable! It was actually a beautiful and delicious sight. When we were done in the taffy store we headed back to the cars to unload all of our stuff. We hauled all our stuff down to the beach and picked out the perfect spot to spend our day. (Actually, it went more like this: "Okay, I don't want to carry this anymore. Let's stop here.") After blankets were layed out and buckets were strategically thrown around, a few of us went down to touch the water--it was so cold! Two of the guys were brave enough to actually go swimming, but their swim only lasted maybe three minutes long. Then Jeff decided to try to teach me how to throw a football. Let's just say...I didn't do so well. There are two things about me that not many people know: a) I can't throw a football b) I can't skip rocks. After we played football for a while (long enough that my arm and shoulder is really hurting today,) we went back up by the rest of the group. Annie, Mandy, Grant, Jeff and I decided to dig a deep hole. While we were digging this random hole, we were finding a ton of complete shells. Eventually, our hole digging became shell seeking. We found countless shells! They were cute little shells, too! None of them were more than 1/2 an inch long, and they were all spirally. I hope that makes sense, because it makes no sense whatsoever to me! After digging our hole, Mandy, Annie and I walked down the beach to some rocks. There were little tide pools in these rocks and there were shells and crabs everywhere! We decided that we wanted to catch some crabs, so Mandy sent me back to our blankets to fetch a bucket to put the crabs in, and to bring back a guy to catch the crabs for us. Jeff and Grant came over. By the time we were done, we had caught at least 10 crabs. Some of them were shelled crabs, and some of them were the type that can only walk side ways. They were pretty cool to look at. Eventually we got bored on the rocks, and headed back to our blankets. Then we all laid on our blankets, and soaked up the sun for about an hour. Then we all went to get some food. We all got pizza from Pizza My Way...I think that's what it is called. They were running a special where for a few dollars more you could buy a slice of pizza and get a free t-shirt with it, that's what we all did. So now, most of us have a super cool (a.k.a. stellar!!) t-shirt to remember our trip by. After we got our pizza, we went and sat on the wall while eating it. I had been craving ice cream all day (so what is new?!) so as soon as we were done with our pizza, Jeff and I went to get ice cream. Surprisingly, nobody else wanted any. I branched out and tried a new flavor: Pistachio and Almond...it was amazing. It was actually a really good day for me, I had two servings of ice cream within the same hour. That is a new record for me! After the group had reassembled we all loaded up and headed to Marianne's. Marianne's is an ice cream shop in Santa Cruz...it is the best ice cream shop in the entire world!! They have OVER 40 flavors, and they are amazing tasting! If there wasn't a huge line behind me, it easily could have taken twenty minutes to decide what I wanted. We all hung out outside of the store while eating our ice cream. After we all finished our ice cream, we loaded up and headed home. On the ride home, Jeff and I watched "Kicking and Screaming" on an i-pod. I have never seen that movie, but it is hilarious!! We laughed so hard that I ended up with a slight headache. We got back to the church around 6:30. Many details of the day have been left out. But in a nutshell: the day was amazing. Every minute of it was absolutely wonderful. I can't wait for the next ocean trip.