Today was our second annual Auntie trip down to Solana Beach... Except this year we didn't miss our stop!
Five minutes after we had arrived, we let Avery dig in the sand with one of our empty champagne bottles since we forgot her shovel and bucket, and immediately got busted by the lifeguard for having glass on the beach. Oops.
Later on Avery and I took a walk down the beach, and collected all kinds of colorful rocks and shells.
...And then Avery and Auntie Jennifer made a sandcastle and decorated it with rocks and a ducky that we found too.
Of course our day was not without aggressive seagulls trying (and sometimes succeeding) to steal our snacks!
The highlight of the trip was when Avery and I stumbled upon a little pool full of Brittle Stars. I quickly realized that two little girls were collecting them off of a big piece of uprooted kelp that had washed ashore, and trying to save them from baking in the sun. They were dumping water on the kelp roots to keep the creatures wet, picking them off the kelp one by one, storing them in the temporary pool they had dug, and then transferring them into a bucket and returning them to the ocean. We joined their efforts, and eventually I helped the older girl detach the entire root ball from the kelp, and drag it back out into the water so the Stars would have at least a little bit more of a chance for survival. I know it will wash back up eventually, but we didn't like that the Brittle Stars were dying in the heat. It was neat to see so many of them in their natural habitat, and Avery was excited that she got to hold so many of them.
It turned out to be an absolutely perfect day. The weather, and the water, couldn't have been better.
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