trip: part three

Well I hope I'm not boring anyone with the details of our vacation, and its taking me long enough to get it all down. But I am not only doing this to share, but also to make a record for myself, in case I ever get around to scrapbooking this trip. Well this day, we spent the majority of our time at the Monterey bay aquarium. We knew that this would definitely be on the agenda, since Alyssa was sure to enjoy it, and she did. Our hotel was about 2 miles from the aquarium, so we decided to walk, enjoy the scenery, and save the hassle of parking. We explored the aquarium for a while, and then took a lunch break and

had some clam chowder at Cannery Row, and then went back for more sea creatures. My favorite part of the aquarium was probably the jelly fish exhibits and the kelp forest. The jellyfish were magnificent, and they had all colors and sizes and shapes on display. The kelp forest was a three story tank with all kinds of sea creatures swimming around, as well as a scuba diver feeding the fish and answering questions from the crowd. Alyssa's favorite was the kid's play area complete with all kinds of water play, tunnels, and a slide. We finished off the day with a drive down to Carmel to watch the sunset on the beach. But the highlight of the day was actually nontrip related; we got a pix message from my sister Larissa of a positive pregnancy test. Woohoo! Another niece or nephew! Its exciting too, because our new baby and their's will only be about 4 months apart.

trip: part two

On this particular day of our trip, we started the day with a tasty and very filling breakfast at our hotel and went for a walk around the gardens at our hotel in Cambria and visited their nursery, which my mom would have loved. Then we headed up the coast on our way to Monterey. So this day was just mostly devoted to taking our time on this stretch of highway 1 and enjoying the views. We stopped at this one beach that was covered with literally hundreds of elephant seals, and we saw Hearst Castle from afar. We would have loved to take a tour, but we figured that that would not be a good idea for Alyssa right now or for anyone else on the tour. Its very unlikely that she would be quiet for a 45 minute guided tour; so maybe when she's a little older. We drove the very scenic and windy stretch of Big Sur, finally ending in Monterey. We checked into our cute, but very small hotel room in Pacific Grove, where we would be staying for the next two nights, and headed to a local seafood restaurant recommended by the guy at the front desk. It turned out to be a very good recommendation, and we even had time to take a drive around town before it got too dark and found another awesome playground for Alyssa. It was a very unique playground called the Dennis the Mennis playground with long curvy slides, tunnels, climbing wall, a real train you could climb on and more. Alyssa had a blast, and so did daddy.

vacation: day one

We are back from our trip; actually we have been for a few days, but I haven't had the time or the motivation to update our blog. So I have a ton of pictures, and I wanted to share some highlights from our trip but I thought I might break it up into pieces. We had an awesome time together and Alyssa traveled really well; we were very happy with how good she was. So the first night we left late and stayed in Ventura, in order to avoid LA traffic. Then the next day we stopped in Santa Barbara for a very short time and found a unique fun little playground for Alyssa to play on. Then we stopped in Solvang and had lunch and some delicious pastries. Then on up the coast to Cambria for the night. We loved Cambria and almost wished we could have stayed a couple nights. We stayed in the Cambria Pines Lodge, which had the most beautiful gardens to walk around in, and the little village of Cambria itself was very enchanting. I would definitely recommend it as a must see; when you drive into Cambria you feel like you are in some mountain town with all the beautiful pines, you could almost forget that you are also only a mile or two from the ocean. Oh I almost forgot another must see on our way to Cambria. We stopped at Avila beach which is actually about 3 miles off the 101; you wouldn't even know it was there, if you didn't follow the signs. We did a little beachcombing and Alyssa played on the cute playground there too. We were commenting on how vacations change, when you have a toddler with you, and we were laughing at how finding cool playgrounds was high on the agenda for this trip. (p.s. I am sorry for how the pics are showing up; I am having trouble getting them to line up the way I want them too.)