Me 'n my boys!

I’ve been wanting to take these boys to the beach for a long time, so with spring break coming up, I started to look into what it would take to get to the beach. I found a great price on airline tickets, and so I started to look into hotels. I knew I wanted to stay right on the beach, because that makes all the difference as to how much you use it. If you’re not staying right on the beach and you’re working with kids, it’s going to take you 45 minutes just to get ready, kids in the car, find a place to park, and set up camp. Then a similar routine to get home… that’s a 1.5 hr round trip – which can be a big deterrent to achieve exactly what you want to achieve. But when you stay right on the beach, you step out when you want, and back in when you want. It makes all the difference!

And while looking into places right on the beach the prices were starting around $150-$180+. I believe in living frugal, so prices like that for 4-5 days aren’t fun to see. But in looking at hotels, one review mentioned they loved the hotel because there was a dog beach just half a mile away… That got me thinking… What if we took Bela with us to California. We could have tons of fun on the sand and in the water, the poor girl has probably been neglected all winter, and I’ll bet the boys would LOVE having her there. And, if nothing else, it for sure would be an adventure!

So I started looking into what it would take to bring her. In doing so, I found a hotel right on a beach that allows dogs for only about $100 per night! I booked the hotel, and got in touch with the airlines and found out the details of what I’d need to travel with the dog… There was more to it than I’d have thought… and to bring bela cost more than it cost to bring one of my boys! But in addition to being frugal, I believe in investing in memories, and I thought this would for sure create memories… so over the next 2 weeks we got everything put together and on Sunday we headed to the airport.

I had 2 small boys, a dog, her crate, and luggage to manage all by myself – a challenge for sure. But we made it step by step including the 4 hour drive to the airport, checking in, the flight, picking up the luggage in San Diego, catching a bus to the car rental location, and the drive to the hotel.

We got into San Diego Sunday night at about 8:00pm and made it to the hotel by 11:00pm. We crashed that night and hit the beach all day the next day. It was perfect! And Bela was such a good dog the whole trip! Here’s just a few pictures from our first day out:

Rocky was so sad because our seats were right next to the engine, and he could hardly see out the window.  :(