California 2015 part 2 (Monday - Friday)

Monday we went to Monterey to walk around the pier and do some souvenir shopping. I've been practically living in the sweatshirt that I bought last year, so I bought a few more that are just as comfy so I can change up my wardrobe a little bit!  

 We stopped off at Pizza My Heart for some lunch.  Janet and Les sent us some tshirts from this shop a while back so the boys wanted to see what it was all about.

Believe it or not, Jane ate all of this pizza!  

 We stopped off at a surf shop to rent a few wet suits.

Paul Ben Daniel Jane Alys Seth Mieren Sherron Mark Les

We headed to Sand City Beach for the rest of the day.  

Seth absolutely loves being in the ocean!  He had a lot of fun on the boogie board. 

Jane and I spent the afternoon playing on the beach.  I buried her many times and she loved it!

Tuesday morning we got up and went for a little hike in the Forest of Nisene Marks California State park.  I was really curious to see what it was like and it wasn't far from Les and Janet's house.  It was beautiful!  One of these days we'll go see the really big Redwood trees, but until I do this forest satisfied me. 

When we got back I realized that I wasn't feeling well at all (dang headaches).  So I stayed home and rested while everyone else went back to Sand City Beach.

Wednesday we went to Greyhound Rock. It was a beautiful day (hello California sunshine!) 

Jane has been doing all sorts of entertaining poses for her pictures lately.  Seth and Daniel decided to do some posing as well!

The tide was out so we were able to explore the shoreline. 

 We found crabs (dead and alive)

Daniel on his walk to the beach.  This area is gorgeous (and so is that husband of  mine!)

Seth is such a handsome kid!  

We had a picnic lunch and then headed to Santa Cruz. 

Thursday morning we went to Sunset Beach again.  It was really foggy, but the boys got in the water to boogie board because it was their last chance!

I went on a walk along the beach by myself (something I did everytime we went) and found a lot of sand dollars and other beautiful shells.  I was so intrigued by the sand dollars that I went home and did some research on them. They are interesting little animals! I've never seen a live one, but maybe one day I will!

My camera developed some spots on the inside lens during this trip, so I stopped taking pictures as often because this spot was really annoying.  While the boys were out in the water, I would periodically count heads.  When I counted 5 heads and there should have only been 4, I counted again.  Sure enough I saw 5 heads.  One of them belonged to a juvenile sea lion that was about 8 yards away from them!  It was a fun experience for them to see it so close.  The sea lion stayed in the area for about 10 minutes and then left.   

There is the sea lion's head poking out!

After we cleaned up from playing in the water, we packed up our stuff and went to Monterey to return the wet suits.  We visited for a while while exploring a shoreline (I could sit there all day just watching the waves crash into the big rocks- one of my favorite places). 

After we said our goodbye's we went to San Jose where we rented a hotel room for the night.  Daniel returned the rental van and while he did that I sat with the kids in the hotel and we watched tv.  The show "Full House" came on and the boys loved it!  It was a trip back in time for me, that's for sure!  

We woke up early Friday morning, ate breakfast and took the hotel shuttle to the airport.  

Our airplane was loud, but it was an easy journey! 

It was so good to be home.  That is until I actually got home! Oh the chaos that ensued. I'll write more in the next post.