Point Reyes Lighthouse and Drakes Beach

I'm constantly amazed at the beautiful area Northern California is.

  There are the most obvious ones like San Francisco, Napa and Tahoe, but then there are numerous hidden gems, gorgeous hikes and beautiful waterfalls!

Today we explored a fun place north of San Francisco called Point Reyes.

On our way there we enjoyed pretty, bright green rolling hills and as we got closer to the coast we found this (quite popular among photographers) old, abandoned boat.

I love the textures and colors and wonder what her story is.  

 Andrew found a fun place to rest on that soft, ice plant which frequents the CA coast line.
We then went to the visitors center at Drake's Beach and could have stayed at the beach all day!

 It was gorgeous and the weather was perfect too!

I'm sure we will be back to play again here.

 The kids ran and ran, wrote in the sand, jumped and explored.
Not only do we love family beach time, but we need more of it!!

  We then got in line for the shuttle to the lighthouse and had our quick picnic lunch right there in line.  The shuttle service is on nice charter-type buses and takes about 15 minutes.  

The lighthouse was fantastic!  I love where is sits and of course the view was amazing!

There are 308 stairs!  The kids did awesome :)

 We even saw some whales out there spouting in the ocean! 

On the way back while we waited for the shuttle we watched this cute lady draw and then paint this sweet picture with a tiny watercolor set she stores in an altoid container.  

The kids thought it was pretty great.  She was so kind to talk to them through her entire process.

It was a wonderful, low-key, not scheduled day together.
  I'm looking forward to many of these in 2015!