Digging the Beach in California

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of bucket and spade/shovel and pail (beach).

This is a snapshot of a mother and her two children -- a girl and boy -- sitting on an unidentified beach. The little girl is holding a cup that she may be using to pour sand into the metal pail in front of her. The boy has a small shovel that he is using to dig sand to put into a plastic pitcher.

The only clues to the location of the beach are the flags in front of the building in the background. I wasn't able to determine what the flag on the left might be, but the one on the right is the U.S. flag. I could see that the flag in the middle featured some sort of animal on a light background with a dark stripe along the bottom. After a bit of searching, I was able to identify it as the Bear Flag, which is the official California flag.

See also a cropped version of the photo.