tradition?

I think we might have started a new tradition - going down to the tidepools in Pt. Loma in January.  We went on New Year's Day and had a great time.  Admittedly, this was not an original idea.  I thought it was, but based on the line to just get into the Park (we went to the ones down from the Cabrillo Naitonal Monument, so you have to wait to pay your $5 - or use your National Parks Pass like us... yeah, we're cool).  Anyway, we did have to wait for about 15 minutes, but a large bag of Baked Cheetos made sure to keep spirits up.  Unfortunately, this trip made me acutely aware that I have a major problem with my camera.  Bummer. I got a few pictures, but most were kind of fuzzy and the last 1/2 were all 1/2 black.  Ouch.  

We had a little picnic at the top of the hill and then headed down.  We didn't want to wait to park in the parking lot that is closest, so we did a little bit of hiking (totally not that far, but no portapotty, which was kind of needed).  It really was a beautiful day.  Last year, I just had Fox in the Baby Bjorn but this year was a little harder, since of course he wanted to run around and bend over to look at the pools of water.  After a while, I just stayed up close to the bluffs with him and Robie took the older girls out a little farther to explore.  We did all see a pretty sweet lobster, and a sea star.  Everyone else saw two other giant multi-color sea stars, but I missed those while I was at the portapotty - who knew the sea stars could move so fast?  I guess they were cruising along the rock so they were gone when I got back down there.  We were goin gto go to the lighthouse, too, but everyone was kind of done with that idea after roaming around at the tidepools for a couple of hours.  We did take the time to stop at Robie's granddad's grave on the way back.   We hadn't been to his site since his funeral, so when we got there it was a little weird because we were using the map code numbers they had given us to find it (it's the huge military cemetery out there on Pt Loma).  He was cremated (they didn't have any more space in the ground), so he is in this giant wall of names.  When I was looking, I yelled out that I found it, so Robie and the kids could come over.  After a few seconds I had pointed out the wrong name!  I was looking at a "Robert Tyler".. um, yeah, his granddads name was Paul Bardsley.  It was only a few rows over but still I thought it was weird - I mean, that is Robie AND his dad's name (although this granddad is on his mom's side)..oops.  Also, taking kids to see a wall with lots of names in it brings up a lot of macabre questions.  We just tried focusing on the star fish and our subsequent treat visit at 7-11.