Celebrating Birthdays at Pelican Hill

This past weekend, my family and my sisters’ families went to Pelican Hill to celebrate Parker and my niece Berry’s birthdays. It’s become a sort of a tradition, this is our second year doing it. We rented one three bedroom villa, which accommodated us all. The villas are perfect because they’re near one of the resort’s main pools and they have a full kitchen so you can cook.

Can you believe the pool and jacuzzi are open 24 hours? We did a bit of night swimming, ate Sprinkles cupcakes (in lieu of a cake) and then, when the kids went to bed, enjoyed wine and ’80s music. We danced in our robes, playing “old school” jams like those from Erasure, Depeche Mode, Cure, OMD, Pet Shop Boys and even PM Dawn. (Who doesn’t love Set Adrift On Memory Bliss or I’d Die Without You?) We winded down the night with some Mariah and Whitney.

Overall, the kids had a blast, the adults lived it up and we swore we’d do this again next year. Heck, we had such a good time that we’re even thinking about making this a bi-yearly thing. Love this place.

We came in a few hours before check-in time and went to the magic show at the clubhouse. This is Hector the Magician, he was amazing! That’s Parker in the red and white sweater, raising his hand to be picked to come up. Love how that kid’s so brave.

Parker was such a trooper. Here he is getting his hat on to help Hector with one of his acts.

My niece Berry was loving the magic show. I love her beautiful laugh.

This is my nephew Bobby, my brother-in-law Linker, Sammy and Logan hanging out at the balcony of the clubhouse. Bobby looks like he’s hovering in mid-air.

After lunch, the kids played with the bocce balls, throwing them around.

We asked for an early 3pm check-in (it’s usually 5pm) but we still had a few hours to kill before we got our villa. The cool thing about Pelican Hill is that you can use all of their amenities on the same day, before checkin-in. We decided to hit the pool for a few hours. Carol’s family hadn’t showed up yet.

This photo of my older sister Grace was taken on the balcony of our villa. We had a spectacular view of the ocean.

My sister Carol, her husband Burt, and her three boys arrived and they prepared a Korean dinner which consisted of bulgogi, chadolbaegi (two different types of meats) and green onion salad. Here’s Parker happily hanging onto his cousin Evan.

I love how, in this photo, it looks like the three boys are huddling. In actuality, they’re trying to see if they can all do the “kimchi squat.”

We all headed to the pool for a late afternoon, evening swim. Here’s the outside of our villa.

By the time everyone got in the pool, the sun was setting and the sky gave off a beautiful purple light. No one else was in the pool, just my family. Logan’s the one in the center.

I was experimenting with symmetry and perspective here. Love how everyone is pictured as silhouettes.

Sam holding Logan in the middle of the pool.

I caught My nephew Grayson mid-air jumping onto a pool float. Love the colors in this shot.

After our evening trip to the pool, we all went back to the villa to sing happy birthday and eat cupcakes. Here, the family has gathered around the two birthday kids, Berry and Parker.

I’m glad I caught this photo of the two kids blowing out the candles.

After the cupcakes it was time for movie night. We brought an air mattress and set it up in the living room. All the kids piled on top of it to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.