Newport Coast

My family hasn't gotten together all at the same time for a while, they were trying to get us all to go on a vacation together but it's hard to coordinate with everyone's schedule. Then, earlier this year, my brother had his stroke and wasn't able to do much. After months of physical therapy and everything, nothing much has helped. My sister decided to get a timeshare nearby so we could "get away" a bit and spend some time together. She was going to get her usual Palm Springs resort over the summer while the girls were still in town but no one seemed that interested or had the time to drive out there to be stuck in some condo like place in that kind of heat. She tried to find a place near the beach but they were all booked up until now.

She got the place for a week but no one was really able to go for that long. Everyone is back to work and only had the weekend. She headed over early with my mom and they hung out there themselves, taking walks on the beach and seeing the tide pools. Tommy was in and out and had to fly back briefly to work. When he came back, he picked up my brother and niece who took Friday off to enjoy a little more time there. Christian and I headed over late that evening after Christian got off work. He was too exhausted to go earlier, so he took a nap after work and we had dinner before heading over as well. 

The place sits above Crystal Cove. They have trams that take guests down to the beach there or Laguna Beach on and off all day. My mom took Norman and Lauren down to the beach I guess briefly on Friday. Then, Tommy and Wendy taught Lauren how to play pickle ball.

Christian and I got up early and walked down to Crystal Cove by ourselves to go birding. There was a surprising amount of people already at the beach and really, all over the streets. It was not exactly quiet or relaxing. We didn't make it very far down the beach. We took our time taking pictures and videos of whatever birds we could find.

The little sanderlings are always the neatest but they dart around so much it is difficult to get a good picture of them. There were a ton of brown pelicans and they were the easiest to take pictures of because they are big, abundant and move a lot slower compared to the smaller birds. The most interesting bird we got was actually just a Heerman's Gull. It came down and was flailing around in the waves and totally got bodied by the waves several times before making it out. He was very unsteady afterwards. We didn't know if he was old and dying or hurt from the crashing around in the waves or just drunk. It eventually recovered at least somewhat but it was very dramatic watching him. 

Eventually, we decided to head back to see what everyone else was planning to do for the day but on our way back, we ran into a hawk flying around and we chased down several smaller birds in the chaparral. 

By the time we got back, Tommy had left again to see his mother and meet up with his sister. Everyone else was up and had gotten breakfast. We made a few plans and headed out again after lunch. We took the tram back down to the other side of Crystal cove. Christian wasn't feeling that well and stayed behind.

It was just as well that he didn't not come with us because the tram takes you to the most crowded part of the beach, where all the shops and restaurants are. It was crowded and there were not a lot of birds. We only spent an hour or so there before heading back to meet with Christian and to take the tram to Laguna Beach. Our niece wanted to go to some of the museums there. My mom was tired and stayed at the resort. My brother went with Lauren and the rest of us went down to the beach. It was even more crowded here. Not sure if it was just because it was later in the day or if the beach is always more crowded. There were as many people milling around as when I went to the beach over the summer with the girls.

We took some pictures of all the Brown Pelican's and Brandt's Cormorants on Pelican or Bird Rock and the tide pools. 

Afterwards, we headed back to the resort. We were pretty tired and hungry. We planned to celebrate Christian's birthday that evening even though his birthday is technically not until the next day. Christopher drove out to join us just for the evening. Christopher, Tommy and his sister took the opportunity to play pickle ball at the facilities while we worked on dinner. I had baked a simple portable cake on Friday before we came. I brought some extra caramel to drizzle over it and some candles but no matches. No one had a lighter so we did without. Christopher decided to decorate the cake a bit but I think the caramel was a little too thick to flow well. He ended up writing "HBD" and drew some stick birds flying in the air. It was hilarious because you can barely tell what anything was. Since the caramel was somewhat thick, he tried to make a caramel candle but it fell and turned into something more akin to a caramel turd. The important thing was that the cake tasted good!

After dinner, some of us went for a walk. Wendy took us for a tour of the facilities there. We went to the gym and attempted to play ping pong! Christopher left to go back home. Wendy's place really isn't that far and he opted to drive back to get a better night's sleep in his own bed. Which was a wise choice as the place was packed and kept way too hot.

The next morning, Christian and I got up early once again and headed back out to the beach but we never made it. We got distracted chasing little birds on the grounds. We also kind of bush wacked our way onto the golf course. Luckily, no one was really out playing. We did run into one of the grounds keepers but he was friendly and didn't seem to mind us being there.

All-in-all, we got 10 "lifers" over this weekend. We are racking up quite a list since we started a couple of months ago when I got my big zoom lens. We did count a few of the birds we've taken pictures of and can identify in our picture catalogue. Some birders will even count birds they can hear and not see, as long as they can identify them. We've decided to count only the ones that we are able to capture on camera and catalogue. They don't have to be great pictures, but they do need to be recognizable! Afterwards, we still hope to get better pictures of them all when we find them as we are photographers first and foremost.

Since it was getting late, we decided we had better hurry back to help pack up and clean up as we were supposed to check out soon. Even though Christopher took some things home for them, they still had more stuff than they could fit in their one car because Tommy picked up Norman and Lauren up separately with their luggage. We were really only allowed two cars in total at the resort and since it was all booked up, we had to both park on the other end of the resort in the parking garage. Tommy had offered to take everyone out to lunch for Christian's birthday to a Hong Kong style cafe that we had talked about the evening before. So we put most of the luggage in our vehicle and met them back at Wendy's house. Luckily, Christopher was still there and able to then join us for lunch. Collin also joined us at the restaurant. The restaurant was super crowded but the food was pretty good.

Afterwards, we went back to Wendy's to hangout for a little bit more. Christopher gifted Christian a wireless microphone for his birthday. He had seen some of Christian's neat videos and thought that it might be useful. You can connect it to your camera or phone. Christian got to play with it a little as Christopher gave us a little example of his matcha tasting thing he does. Christian recorded him doing it.

We ended up polishing off the rest of the cake before heading back home.

I had a few token presents for Christian but we are mostly saving and waiting for what he really wants, which is a new mirrorless camera. The one he wants was just announced last week and will ship later this month!