The Adventures of Jeff and Jen: Tide Pools at Abalone Shoreline Park for Mothers Day

This year was my 3rd Mother's Day. How quickly time passes.
My first Mother's Day, I bought flowers from Trader Joes and we took pictures of me with the flowers.
My 2nd Mothers Day, we did afternoon tea at Rose Garden Tea Room in Huntington Library.

I considered doing the tea room again this year, but, the hours of the tea room doesn't work well with Caitlin's current nap schedule, and honestly.. I ate way too much at the tea room last year, that I still feel ill just thinking about it.

I thought about what other activities I enjoyed doing. I like beaches but we go so often that it isn't as "special" anymore. Then I realized how much fun I had tide pooling back in January 2012, that I wanted to go again. We went to Abalone Cove Shoreline Park in Ranchos Palos Verdes for my birthday last November but we didn't see any tide pools because we did not go during low tides (we just went when we were able to, because of Caitlin's nap schedule).
We got lucky this time because when I checked the low/high tide schedule, it said that the low tide was at 1:25pm. That is perfect. We had plenty of time to enjoy the tide pool before heading back home for nap time.

I planned out the entire outing (if I don't do it, no one will).
The plan was: pick up take-out lunch from Hong Kong Bakery in Torrance, which is on the way to Abalone Shoreline Park. They sell dim sum and hawaiian pastries... one of my favorite things to eat.

From Abalone Cove Shoreline Park - May 11, 2014

Then we arrived at Abalone Shoreline Park around 11:30am, 2 hours before low tide. We paid $5 for parking , grabbed our picnic food, and hiked down to the shore to eat an early lunch.

From Abalone Cove Shoreline Park - May 11, 2014

After eating, Caitlin splashed around in the water for a bit, then we started hiking over to the tide pools around 1pm. We arrived around 1:20pm, just in time for low tide. I was expecting to see star fish but there weren't any. I'm sure if we went deeper into the water we would have seen them, but with a 2 year old, it's safer to stay closer to shore. We did see crabs, hermit crabs, sea slugs, sea snails, anemone, urchins, fish, and barnacles. Not bad.

From Abalone Cove Shoreline Park - May 11, 2014

Caitlin was absolutely obsessed with the hermit crabs, and even today, she still requests to see some crabs.It was a painfully long, hot, uphill walk back up to the parking lot, but the views were absolutely beautiful. I was so glad Jeff was able to carry Caitlin back to the parking lot, while I took my time walking at my own pace. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it back alive.