surf's up

a guy in our ward, dan raddon, texted us the other night to see if we wanted to go surfing the next day (he's been promising to take ryan for a while).  after making sure all of us could go, and not just ryan, we took him up on the offer and headed down to san onofre beach.

it was perfect weather with and overcast morning and sunny, but not too hot afternoon.  cody was pretty content to sit in the sand and fill up his bucket over and over.

he wanted to go check out more of the beach, but it was a little too steep going down, so he had to scoot down on his belly

(picture a little kid scooting down the stairs)

dan and ryan went out first for a little refresher since ryan's been once or twice now.  the waves were a little rougher in the morning and ryan ended up getting hit in the head by a board.  he just hung out on the beach with cody and i for a little big and he was ready to get back out after lunch.

here's about the closest i could get to one of them surfing.  dan rode a lot of waves for a long time.  this is ryan just about to get up.  its definitely hard to capture the few seconds of riding a wave with cody around!

while ryan was taking his break, dan took me out a little way to let me give it a try.  i kept forgetting to jump the waves, so i fell a million times at first....but then i figured it out.  i got to ride three waves in.  the first one i pearled (official surfer lingo for 'nose-dived'), but the second and third i rode in on my knees.  i didn't quite have time to get up to my feet since we weren't out too far.  

here i am, a bit waterlogged, with my surf instructor, dan.  

cody wasn't too much a fan of the waves this time around, so instead ryan dug him a little pool that filled up when the waves came high enough.  he had a great time sitting and splashing.  we dug some other holes closer to our shady spot and cody was happy as can be sitting in them and filling his bucket. 

when he got tired of digging in the sand, he walked up and down the beach patting other people's surf boards and picking up rocks to taste....

i know, so gross.  there's just so much you can do to keep sand out of a kid's mouth when you're completely surrounded by it.  he definitely paid for it with a sore, sandy bottom for a few days afterward.

we had so much fun, even with our odd, missed-that-spot-with-the-sunscreen sunburns and sore muscles the next day.  i'm so excited to now be able to say that i have surfed.  maybe we'll even be able to go once or twice more before we leave california!