Mona Vale beach

Rex & daddy made an awesome sandcastle.

I turned 30 the next week..so hence the 30 in the sand pic.

Our friend Julia buried Lucy and she loved it. She was so relaxed we thought she was going to take a nap.

We went to a beautiful beach a few weeks ago called Mona Vale. It was very unique. You could walk out onto the rocks and run when the waves came crashing in.

There were a few little pools that were fun for the kids to snorkel around in. It was all sea water so you had fish and all sorts of creatures in there swimming with you.

Everyone wears the rash guards or the swim shirts here. (Obviously I am the only one who doesn't have one yet). The sun is so intense here, that is also why all children have to wear hats at school or they cannot play outside.

Royal National Park

Saturdays are usually our exploring days. I must admit, we are a little obsessed with exploring. It was a rainy day on Saturday but after we had done all the things we needed to do we decided to head out to this place that we had been told about. It was about an hour and 20 minutes from our house in the Royal National Park. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. The thick forests on either sides of the road, with the drizzling rain was awesome. We arrived at the park and noticed that they have areas where you could camp. We thought that might be something fun to do before summer is over in a month or so. The beach area that we went to was called Wattamolla. It was so fun and so beautiful. We had to hike down into the beach area, over some rocks and through a thick forest area. I told Jared that even though I know the vampires from Twilight aren't real, it was the perfect place for them to be lurking. :) You just never know :). It had a fresh water lagoon with a waterfall and beach area. Jared reassured me that there were no crocodiles in the fresh water. :) There were high rock cliffs on either side with a nice beach inlet. I guess it is supposed to be a great area for whale watching. Although it was a little chilly, the kids still had fun playing in the sand and swimming in the water. We had brought some grapes and this aggressive black bird kept swipping them from our bag. He even got into our bag, pop off the lid to the container and swiped them. We watched and when we would get close he would hop into the trees. Sneaky little thing. I guess he could have them since he had a hurt wing and was probably hungry. When we arrived there were a lot of people playing on the sand, but they soon left and we pretty much had it all to ourselves. We had fun writing and drawing in the sand. We took a classic Schill fam pic of Livi with tiny legs. As we hiked back to our car we read the signs that said that sharks are frequently seen in the water near the shore. Lovely! I am glad I didn't know that before and I am glad it was a cooler day because we didn't get in the ocean much. Oh, and we couldn't resist taking a pic of Lucy's little chubby footprint in the sand.