My favorite house on the beach where we walk each morning and evening.
Part of the enjoyment of our beach walks is looking at the houses — as well as at waves, dolphins and an occasional seal. I’m sharing some of my favorite homes, from mansions to cottages. I notice workers washing windows and gardeners working in the yards — but I rarely see people who live there.
I like the house above the best because the architectural style is similar to the house I grew up in. Lots of large glass windows, angles and shake shingles — a contemporary style from the 1970s. I also love this house because it’s private and not too showy. Then there is the tree:
The tree makes the house.
This stately home must have stunning views from the multiple decks.
Another magnificent home with lush landscaping.
I love the contemporary look of this home and the expanse of windows. They scalped the lawn yesterday, which I didn’t know was a “thing” in Santa Barbara. In Palm Springs, lawns are scalped each fall to plant Winter Rye. In the heat of late Spring, the Winter Rye dies and Bermuda Grass, which is dormant in the winter, grows back.
I like the simplicity of this A frame.
Look what is and has happened around this sweet cottage below? Last year there was a cottage next to it, but now there’s a huge crane making tons of noise.
When you get near the parking lot, the homes are smaller and closer together. There are still some cottages left, that haven’t been torn down to build modern monstrosities. This is one of my favorite cottages.
I hope you enjoyed my beach home tour!
If you owned a beach house, what style would it be? Beach cottage, White House replica, contemporary or modern?
I love how each walk at the beach can have such different views.
I’m not sure if this is a hawk or not, but it’s gorgeous. I stopped to watch it glide on the breeze.
Ashton Kutcher’s house with a small cottage in front.
Afternoon beach walk.
Keven Costner’s property has the white deck and house on the point, valued at $145 million.
The same bird from the other photo. There’s an interesting complex of homes at the opposite end of the beach.
I loved watching this Vizsla dog and puppy chase a frisbee. I missed the shots where the dog leaped into the air to catch the frisbee with the puppy trailing.
I looked up the prices of homes on this beach. The ones I found start at $20 million up to $100 million.
My son and his girlfriend last summer at the beach near Santa Barbara where we”ll be on vacation soon.
What a whirlwind week or two.
We had two health scares in one week. One was my daughter who had a reaction to general anesthesia and almost stopped breathing. The other was my son’s girlfriend — who I don’t know the outcome of a biopsy yet, but needless to say we’re all scared.
My son was so shaken up they decided to move up their wedding date from August 2024 to next week! If she needs surgery, he wants to be officially married and by her side.
I’m experiencing intense joy mixed with fear and praying that everything will be okay. They’ve been together for ten years, so we believed marriage would someday be in their future — just not in a couple days. They are devoted to each other and there’s an abundance of love between them.
We’ll be leaving our vacation for our first child’s wedding to celebrate their day.
A shout out to The World’s Common Tater for his post earlier this week called You Take the Good, You Take the Bad. He gave me the courage to write this post.
When have you experienced the good and bad at the same time?
One of my favorite photos of my son taken years ago by his girlfriend and soon to be wife!
Below: Palm Springs at the entrance of our home during Spring Break while they were in college.
Saturday we started out with a huge walk on the beach. The plan for the rest of the day was to hang out on the beach, swim, float, read and relax. Then we’d go out for a dinner at the $15 prime rib place. We’d be leaving early Sunday morning to get our daughter-in-law Buff to the airport in Phoenix so she could fly back to Northern California.
Once we were in our bathing suits and packed our books, towels and waters, I came up with the idea to rent a pop-up tent from vendors on the beach. Shade would be a welcome addition to our day and would allow my husband to join us. His pale Irish skin is adverse to sun.
The first couple hours were heaven. We were out in the ocean together floating, bouncing over the small waves and feeling fabulous.
Eventually, my husband said he had enough sun and headed back to the condo. I sat on a towel reading in the shade, while Buff stayed in the ocean. Like my daughter said, “It’s impossible to get her out of the ocean.”
After another hour, she came running to the shade of the pop-up tent.
“I got bit by a crab!” she said plopping down on a towel, holding her foot in a panic.
I looked at her foot and their were welts below her little toe wrapping around the side of her foot.
“I think it’s a stingray,” I said.
We had experienced stingrays in Laguna Beach years ago when my husband got stung.
“I’ll go up to the condo and get hot water,” I said. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.
“Bring Advil!” she said.
I ran up to the condo and yelled to my husband, “Buff got stung by a stingray.”
We heated up three to-go cups of water in the microwave and made our way back to Buff.
She was writhing on the ground in pain, surrounded by people. Paramedics had arrived by beach motorcycle and I handed them the cups of hot water.
They motioned for me to stand back and one held her foot while the other gave her two shots in the foot. They applied a cream and then took my hot water, soaked gauze in it and wrapped her foot.
My husband asked what was the shot. The paramedics didn’t speak English, so the guy renting pop-up tents translated. It was lidocaine.
We helped Buff up to the condo and put her feet in the tub. My husband heated more hot water as hot water poured out of the faucet. She was somewhat okay until the lidocaine wore off, which was a mere 15 or 20 minutes.
I ran back to the pop-up tent and gathered our things.
The next two hours were spent heating water and helping Buff through excruciating pain. I felt like a mid-wife with my daughter-in-law giving birth. It was that bad.
Hot water kills the toxins but it has to be at least 110 degrees, so that in itself is painful. My son was on facetime telling me to get a thermometer so Buff wouldn’t scald her feet. I tried to explain that we were in Mexico and I couldn’t run anywhere closeby for a thermometer.
I went through this same stingray ordeal with my husband years before. The lifeguard told me to get hot water and explained that it would ease the pain as it killed the venom. I rushed up to a nearby coffee shop and got cups of hot water. The lifeguard said most people go to the ER, because they can’t tolerate the pain. My husband refused to go to the ER and I drove him back to our hotel with him hyperventilating in the car and me afraid he was going into a seizure. Our kids were scared to death.
I kept asking Buff if she wanted to go to a hospital, but none of us were that keen on going to a hospital in Mexico.
My husband, having gone through it, recalled the pain would ease up in about 90 minutes to two hours. He said after that, if she was still in pain, we’d take her to an ER. We were also frantically on google which substantiated our decisions.
Like clockwork, the pain eased according to schedule. We were all exhausted.
“Now you know how to get me out of the ocean!” she said.
It was paradise, until it wasn’t!
Have you ever been stung by sea creatures? If so, what type of creature? What are your thoughts of swimming in the ocean versus lakes?
Here are two bits of music we enjoyed. The first was next to the El Camaronero statue downtown, the other at the pool bar at the condo. I suggested we sit there for a few minutes hours after Buff’s pain subsided to end our trip on a better note!
Talking with friends on the phone or chatting with neighbors, one thing comes up in conversation — inflation. I decided to start cooking more meals without protein and I’ve concocted a few delicious dishes with beans and rice. I figured it would be healthier and less expensive.
I ran out of rice and was shocked to pay $11 for a small bag of rice! Occasionally, I like to have cream cheese on toast for breakfast. I didn’t look at the price when I threw it in the cart. I almost passed out when the cashier rang up my 12-ounce tub of cream cheese for $8.50! Don’t get me started on gas, but when we moved to Arizona at the end of 2020, gas was $2.10 a gallon. Now it’s over $5.
We are headed south to Mexico for a few days. I’m excited because we are taking my son’s girlfriend with us. My son procrastinated on getting a passport, so he’s not joining us. However, once he found out his girlfriend was going, he did get the renewal going. Guess how much it cost to get a new passport expedited? $250.
I’m looking forward to beach walks, a dip in the gulf of California, hot jacuzzis followed by a cold plunge pool. Sitting on the patio reading, while listening to birds singing.
Plus eating out where a prime rib dinner complete with chowder or salad, baked potato and veggies cost $15!
What items have you seen with prices that surprise you?
How has inflation changed your normal routine?
Do you think we’ll go back to paying lower prices for food or gas?
Prime rib dinner in Mexico for $15. I also will be having lots of seafood.
We’ve vacationed in the summer for six years in this cottage a few blocks from the beach near Santa Barbara. I can’t wait for our time there this summer!
When we get away, we like to stay in VRBOs or Airbnbs — most of the time.
Since the time my son was one year’s old, we rented a house in Laguna Beach in the summer with another family from our hot desert. We rented directly from the homeowners (pre-VRBO era). The owners were school teachers who left for Alaska once the school year was over. We’d split the summer in two and overlap with the other family for a fun weekend.
My husband would commute back and forth for long beach weekends, while I’d stay with the kids the entire time. Not a bad deal, but with toddlers I remember I was tired. Still, much better than being in the desert with temperatures 100 to 126 degrees!
At Christmas the past two years, we’ve rented a house for a week — big enough for our Christmas Crew that varies from 10 to 14 people. We love being together under one roof and cooking Christmas Eve and Christmas Day feasts.
For the past 10 years, since my son was in college at UC Santa Barbara, we traded Laguna Beach for Santa Barbara. We stay at least a week and sometimes almost a month. My husband works remotely, so he sets up shop there.
When don’t we stay in Airbnb’s or VRBOs?
When we are going away for a quick trip, like a weekend, we stay in hotels. First of all, there are usually cleaning deposits and other charges that make a VRBO expensive for two nights. If you’re staying for a week or more, it can be more affordable to rent a house or condo and cook most meals.
When our kids were swimmers, we’d stay in hotels. We’d have to get to the pool early for warm-ups, get back to the hotel so they could rest between prelims and finals. The hectic schedule made the hotel much easier. I didn’t have to prepare meals, grocery shop or do dishes. I could order from the hotel restaurant or drive for takeout.
This gorgeous blue-eyed Siamese-mix was on leash in my old park.
We’re back home in Arizona for a bit. Christmas in my old life and Movie Colony of Palm Springs neighborhood was not as stressful as I worried about in advance. We spent two nights at my 90-year-old dad’s house and then met part of the extended family at a VRBO the kids selected — five blocks from our family home of 28 plus years.
I had mixed emotions about the entire trip. Then I saw my favorite checker from Ralphs’ grocery store my first night there. I saw a fellow swim parent in the parking lot. It made me cry and smile.
We (me, my daughter and son’s fiancee) got pedicures at the place we used to go to. We got hugs and a huge welcome. They wondered where we’ve been for two years — while they were closed for COVID and we moved. Thank goodness they are still in business!
As for getting all the food we missed from our favorite restaurants? That was one of my goals. We cooked most meals with people taking turns. Every meal was delicious. I never ate out.
My daughter went to one of our old favorites with a friend and said it was an insult to Italian food.
We took turns with cooking and cleaning. I think this was a very good family time! Loved every second. Although they didn’t want me to replay “Funky Town” too many times…Or dance~!
How was your Christmas and holidays? What are our plans for the New Year?
