Beach House Style

The family gathered in Santa Cruz last weekend for a celebration of my Mother’s birthday. We’ve been doing a version of this each summer since my grandmother had us all camp out at the dearly-departed Miramar Hotel in Santa Barbara. For this trip, we stayed in a cute old rental house in Seabright. Just a…

Stewart Island has been my absolute favorite thing in New Zealand so far. I’m close to wanting to move to this tiny island town of Oban with a population of 300 and nothing between it and Antarctica.  A mix of the seaside town from Doc Martin and the Alaskan village on Northern Exposure – but…

I’m the luckiest duck there is to have had such a wonderful birthday party this year! To celebrate my (gulp) 35th – Rob and I invited 12 friends down to Pescadero for a weekend of elegant camping at Costanoa Lodge. Beach hikes, mountain biking, adorable kids, gourmet s’mores, goats, cake for breakfast, midnight saunas, impromptu…

Pacific Grove was the ideal place for a four-day weekend relaxing in beach houses with my family and relatives. In the summer, most days are foggy with a spot of warm sun in the middle for a jaunt to the beach. Basics We were 10 adults and 3 kids under 4 for this weekend vacation.…

A kayak is a fantastic way to get a sense of how special the marine ecosystem is in Monterey Bay. Rob and I rented a tandem kayak at Lover’s Point and set out our last afternoon. Not being the world’s biggest whale fan…I, of course, had a close encounter with a gray whale not five…

Our second activity at the Pacific Grove beach house was seaweed pressing. Monterey Bay has GREAT seaweed. As you’ll see in tomorrow’s kayaking post, the kelp forests here are so thick that you can practically walk on the water. My niece Kiera helped me collect samples at the beach in the afternoon and we spread…

No trip to Pacific Grove would be complete without going to the historic downtown to shop for estate jewelry! Beach towns always seem to have great finds, must be something about a retiree population trading in their old gems for comfy chinos. Even compared to other beach towns, I’ve found Pacific Grove to have some…

We had two toddlers and a four year old with us at the beach house last week. They loved playing in the sand, swimming and going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In the evenings, I put together a couple craft projects for the kiddos to do before dinner. First up: beach-themed finger painting. In my…

This week’s dinner party is a bit different than our standard affair. With the whole family in Pacific Grove at the beach, I took on making a spread of cold salads for dinner. There’s a lot of tradition here: we used to visit a gourmet deli called Tutti’s in Montecito and each pick out a…

By chance, we planned our family weekend in Pacific Grove on the day of the annual Feast of Lanterns. I hadn’t known anything about this celebration before we arrived – it’s exactly the kind of thing I like. Started in 1905, the city celebrates a Chinese legend each summer with a boat parade, performance and…