"Kids under 8" sized paddle

With the kids' paddleboards nearly completed (and the threat of rain/lightning/thunder preventing a trip to the beach), I finally undertook the modification of the paddles I bought for the kids to use.

I made a quick template, marked up the paddlehead and fired up the jigsaw and ROS (random orbital sander). After about 30 minutes, this is what I had.

La's first reaction was "why'd did you make it so small?" and the kids giggled.

The weather did clear up and after running an errand, we were in the water (nice and glassy).

I let Marlon use the small head paddle first - he was buzzing around like a pissed off hornet!!!

Noe used it and I could tell she was more efficient in paddling.

I'll cutdown the second one this week and fiberglass both.

What fun SUPing is eh???

Mountain and Sea

NOTE: "Pictures are in reverse order from the description"

Spent the morning in Ojai.

Nice farmers market!

Noe eating "See" food in Antonio's Mexican Restaurant. Mmmm, mmmmm!!!!

Then we went to Point Mugu Beach to fish and paddlesurf. Didn't even get a bite - not one. I'm starting to think it wasn't meant to be...

The ocean facing the south was nice and flat today. Still had to watch your back to make sure a sneaker set didn't get you - especially when ferrying young ones around.

I had to bribe my kids to go out with me on the paddleboard... they obviously didn't get the ocean-phillic gene from me.

Fish 3, Velascos 0

Well we tried again and as always we got the same results - seaweed.

I thought for sure we were going to get a fish this time. I switched out all the various rigs on the poles for surf rigs and used 3 oz torpedo weights.

I even broke out the new red with green flecks grubs.

I lost one rig and a hook off the other - I think there was a submerged log in the area we were casting in.

Fishing at Mugu is starting to feel like golfing... On the bright side, the kids had fun!

And the kiddoroos having fun in the sun

Can't forget the pictures of the rest of the family!

Oh, and Big M lost his first tooth today!!!

The tooth fairy will be flying in tonight...

Natural History Museum at Los Angeles

I took the kids to the Natural History Museum near the USC campus today (La was at LAX picking up some friends).

We got to see some really cool specimens - the second Megamouth Shark known to science, some furry ants (that are really wasps), tons of cockroaches, walking sticks, coelocanths, and a Tyrannosaurus being excavated from the plaster wrappings.
The kids also got to dig out some pretend dinosaur bones.

Marlon got a paleontologist kit at Borders bookstore yesterday - kinda neat that we saw two versions at the museum and then he gets to do it at home too!

We took PCH home instead of the freeways - lots of people out surfing so naturally I get the bug... I blitzed out once we got home and got another session in at Oxnard Beach. More West in the swell today, slightly bigger, but also slightly more prone to slabbing out in closers. 2' overhead on the sets. No wind at all. A small pod of dolphins started jumping ahead of me (only 10' away) while I was waiting for my last couple of waves - not that often have I gotten that close to dolphins - way cool!

Did I mention I love my new board....

Life is good!