Monterey Bay Weekend Trip

We went away for a little three day trip to Monterey. We'd been planning this for some time, finally a get away after the moving.
We are loving all the places we can visit in California on one tank of gas!
 Our 1st stop- Dennis the Menence Park.
 Despite being named for an obscure cartoon nobody ever watched, it is an awesome park.

Jake and Marianne go on the zip line

Kate and Sam find there way through the maze.
The kids love this park.  Usually it seems a bit busy, but today it was just us and two other families with small children.  There are so many play areas, the kids just run from place to place.

There was only a little more than an hour of sliding and riding until some how we had three children who needed new pants because of accidents.
Such is life with three kids 4 years old and under.
 So the park time was cut short.
 We cleaned up at our hotel, then headed to get some seafood for dinner.
Bubba Gumps of course.  I can never get enough crab in my life.
The kids were well behaved too- but maybe because their dinners came in a carrier shaped like a pirate ship.  Lucky us too we got a booth with an ocean view.

We stayed in a new place for us, the Best Western Victorian Inn, just off cannery row. It was close to a lot of stuff, so we could walk instead of having to drive and find parking. It was nice and came with a full breakfast so we would recommend it.  We loved walking to and from things, and checking out the shops along the way.
Here are all the girls cuddled in bed. Sam got jealous so he wanted a picture cuddling mom too.

Day two we headed to the aquarium. It is one of the best aquariums in the United States I bet. If you had a better attention span than a toddler you could spend two days there. We got in a whole morning and called it good.

My favorite part- where you can go under this glass and let the waves crash on top of you. The kids liked this part too.

Star fish and sea cucumbers to touch.

Sammy and a shark

Chasing seagulls and pigeous.

The kids real favorite park of the aquarium was the little kids play zone, with slides and fish custumes, not even real fish.
I think we like to take our kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium because we both have memories as children there.  His most clear memory is actually the huge whales hanging from the ceiling in the entry.  Mine most clear memory is watching seals off the pier.

That afternoon- a trip to the candy store I believe it is called the Candy Baron, to pick out baskets of candy. So fun. Kate kept reminding me that I told her we could do this. She couldn't wait to go.  We had tried the night before but they closed early so we had to go back the next day.  The saying "like a kid in a candy shop" is not a saying for now reason.  It was a great time.  They mostly picked out 47 different kinds of salt water taffy.  They couldn't believe their luck when we got back to the hotel and I told them they could eat as much as they wanted.

More afternoon at the beach. The kids were sure to not bring our candy to the beach like last time.... when the seaguls attacked our candy and left none for them.

Digging in the rocks and sand could have been an all day event for Sam and Kate. The loved it. We are bundled up in hats and coats, but it was around 62, just a little windy. A great day for the beach. I went to the car to feed Marianne, and then the kids and Jake saw some sea otters. Darn it and me missing it.

Day three. After a morning check out we went the My Museum, a new find for us. It was the kids favorite thing of the whole trip so I'm glad we didn't skip town early. Sam dressed as a fireman the whole time and ran around from phone to phone saying " Hello how are you" then hanging up and saying "some one is in trouble" Kate liked the ball machines best. If you are planning a trip to Monterey, I would say this was a must must must with little kids.

It was great to get away. We have been anticipating a little trip for some time, the kind we use to do before Marianne joined our family. It won't be long till Kate is bound to school and we can't just up and go any day we'd like-so we have got to make good use of these last few school free months.

Day at the Beach

We decided while we were in California we would take our kids to the beach for the day.
Partly because we wanted more to do on our vacation.
Partly because our kids have never really experienced the beach.
And partly because Kate pretends to make sand castles all the time, and talks about making sandcastles all the time. I wanted to show her what it was really about.
So after leaving Disney we headed to Pismo.
Lets start by saying we had no idea where we were going and decided to rely completely on our phones map directions to get there.
It was not perfectly clear or accurate and when we arrived, we simply couldn't find the beach.
Almost giving up, Jake was persistant and found us some sandy shore, a pier and some quaint seaside shops.
After parking, and layering up for the wind, discovering Sam had no shoes he could wear, we found a little restaurant where we ordered fish and chips and clam chowder.
Next we walked along the shops, and purchased an $8 bag of salt water taffy. Thinking we would eat some, and share some with Jake's dad who we remembered liking the stuff.
Then we walked down to the shore line, laid out our towels, grabbed our buckets and got to work on that sand castle.
While I showed Kate what an actual sand castle was and found a few shells, Jake and Sam went to dip their feet in.
A few minutes later I went to see them, and as I approached I saw Sam fall in the ocean.
Soaking wet we wrapped him in towels and tried to keep him warm then the boys built a sandcastle along side ours.
We decided to all venture back down to the shore to dip our toes in. We did. Nobody fell in this time.
Then we headed back.
Jake started running back to our stuff.
The kids started chasing after him. I thought it was cute so I took a picture.
Oblivious.
Soon I saw that Jake was really trying to scare the 30 or so seagulls.
They had found the taffy.
The taffy that was wrapped, in a grocery sack, in my purse.
They drug it out, and scattered it all along the shore. We had eaten about 6 pieces or it.
Those birds would not leave. They made the kids mad. They kept yelling "shoot" copying Jake's "shoooo" as in go away. Though "Shoot" seemed an appropriate exclamation. They also kept re-telling the story about "those birds they ate all our candy"
At this point, we came to grips with our mostly hilarious, somewhat tragic, surely memorable trip to the coast and packed our things and drove to Fresno.
Though the trip wasn't perfect, I'm glad we went.

Fresno was a nice, relaxing, warm two days. I took naps, the kids played outside, and ate their weight in farm grown strawberries.

Home again.
Back to our house that still is needing to be put back together after the new carpet came.

Dinseyland Vacation... Yes Again!

We went to California again.
I know that sounds a little crazy seeing as how we just went 6 months ago, and I am 6 months pregnant. But we couldn't pass up the chance to be together with half my family in Disneyland.
This time we met up with both my parents, my sister Amy and her little family for two days at the magical kingdom. I typed up notes on my computer about the trip at the end of it in the car- which I will insert here later. Enjoy the pictures for now.