Monterey Trip

We had an aquarium membership that needed to be used twice in a calendar year so we headed back to Monterey at the beginning of the week off for Thanksgiving. We made it to the amazing aquarium and then drove by Carmel and saw views of Pebble Beach Golf Course from the beach. It was a great quick trip!

Golf course on the bluff

Looking at the Ocean

Dipping our feet in the sand on our walk (keep in mind this is late Nov), it was so nice!

A kid pic

Battling the shadows.

Enjoying the aquarium

Sitting under the crashing wave!

CA Coast

These pics should be posted bottom to top but I am not going to take the time to swap them out. We had a wonderful weekend at the coast for a mini-family reunion and memorial celebrating the lives of Jeremy's Great Uncle Phil and Great Aunt Peggy. It was great to see the extended family and spend some time at the ocean.

Family bath time after getting soaked at the ocean

Playing in the waves, it started as avoid getting touched by the waves and moved onto just get drenched!

No pics but I was sitting well up on the beach and watching, at one point Kate got behind me so I had to turn and see where she was and of course that is when the one rogue wave came up and soaked me while my back was turned! We all needed baths after this fun adventure.

Jaydon was in the other car but we got to stop at Stanford University and do a quick little visit on campus, it was beautiful and very cool.

The arcades was amazing, this whole square filled with arches on the buildings.

More beach time!

Kodiak, AK

We got to have a wonderful trip to Kodiak! We took the kids up on Monday and then J and I were supposed to leave Fri for an anniversary trip and the kids would come down with Granny and Papa the following Wed but J and I got fogged in so our weekend trip had to get cancelled but we saw some amazing sites, enjoyed some beautiful weather and still got a couple days on the end at home when we didn't have kids with us. It was such a great trip.

I took this at 10:30 at night to show some of my friends what it looks like at night.

Travel day! They do such a nice job traveling it is awesome!

We arrived and went on a little hike. The next day we walked out to Buskin beach and enjoyed the sun and water

This is the beach sand, it is amazing, so soft. And crazy that one area has rocky beach all over and the next has completely sandy one.

We definitely felt like we were on an island in the Pacific (just a bit more south than we actually were)

Paddle board!

Bath time

The next day Papa treated Jeremy, Granny and me to a flight-seeing trip. It was amazing to see the island from the air and land on an alpine lake, wander for a bit and then continue on. We saw goats, bear and deer, glaciers and such amazing scenery it was incredible. Thanks G and P for a wonderful anniversary present.

You can see the shadow of our plane at the very bottom of this pic.

So amazing I can't even describe it!

The sea lion pile! We saw a couple sea lions trying to join the heap and kept getting pushed back into the water. It was pretty funny.

Fishing and boat time

And even just a little catching!

Then the kids got to be in not one 4th of July parade but 2! They rode in Dr. Dave's really old car in the town parade and rode in a decorated boat in the Chiniak parade. Quite a fun day celebrating the 4th.

Picture through the window while driving home. The girls and Papa in the front, J and me in the back.

When the fog rolled in we went to Abercrombie and did a little more hiking and beaching

We got to see Granny in her bells performance

Then we hit an awesome farmer's market with pony rides and goat petting and all sorts of fun activities.

We had such a great trip in AK!