December 7th

I've had an idea in my head for a while to take Emma to the beach with a Christmas tree and take a picture of her decorating it.  I finally got a tree and sold Emma on the idea a couple of weeks ago.  The particular beach I wanted to go to is small and disappears during high tide so I had to consult the tidal charts (more complicated than I realized) and find a day that we were free to make the trek over to Malibu.  We got up bright and early and fortunately I read the tidal chart correctly, but the sun was super bright and the pictures didn't really turn out as I planned.  So, we went on to plan B.  Last Friday night we went down to my favorite beach by my mom's house and I consulted the tidal chart again since this beach also disappears during high tide and thought we would have more luck with the late afternoon sun.  I'm sure you can imagine all of the strange looks I received as I buried our tree in the sand and some even asked to take pictures with it.  I still didn't capture the picture I had in my head so we will try again next year.  The novelty of the photo quickly wore off in Emma's eyes so she is definitely done with it for now, but she was a really good sport about the whole escapade :-)