We got back from our vacation today and we had a good time!
Wednesday afternoon we drove to Monterey and went to Dennis the Menace Park to play before dinner. It was a fun park, and while everyone in Sacramento was enjoying over 100 degree weather, it was a very nice 68 and sunny at the park.
The next morning we got up and drove to Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the sea otters and the other fish there. We flew through a quarter of the exhibits and then we got to the tide pools section where the kids could touch things. Joel's attention span got much much larger and we stayed there for 30-40 minutes. He liked touching all of the types of sea weed. But I was busy watching him so I didn't take any pictures right there. I did take several others though, and I finally got a good picture of a hammerhead shark.
 |
| We sure liked watching the fish! |
|
 |
| They had a little play area with a slide, rocking sea horse, and a place for the kids to dress up. It gave Rachel and Joel some time to be kids and be a little more wild. |
The next day we packed up the van and went to the beach in hopes of finding some tide pools. The tide was fairly high at that time so we played at the sandy beach, and then we drove along the coast until we found some better rocks for tide pools. While we were there I was telling Rachel how important it was to be careful about where you step because the rocks were hard and sharp. During that time I stepped on a sloped spot on the rock that had sand on it (which I couldn't see) and slipped myself and hurt my foot. It didn't seem to be broken though so we finished looking at things and then went to McDonald's for ice cream cones for everyone. That night my foot hurt a lot but I could still walk so I decided to tough it out at Gilroy Gardens the next day.
 |
| We walked around the sandy part of the beach and found several shells that Rachel collected. We told her that we weren't going to take them home but I took some pictures of them so she can remember them. |
|
 |
| It was pretty foggy on the sandy part of the beach but that didn't stop the kids from having a great time. |
 |
| At the tide pools we saw sea snails, hermit crabs that were walking, regular small sand crabs, chitans, and tons of sea weed. It's hard tide pooling with small children though because Rebekah and I had to lift them up and over into places where they couldn't get up themselves. It was pretty cool though that they got to see places they couldn't walk themselves. |
Gilroy Gardens turned out to be a lot of fun. My foot got a lot better during the day and I was able to walk at almost full speed by the time we left. Rebekah saw that they had some spray grounds there so we bought the kid's bathing suits with us. They really enjoyed spending the last 30 minutes there running around in the water.
 |
| Most of the rides there weren't quite as good as Disney Land but the car ride was actually better. |
 |
| This is one of the circus trees that live in Gilroy Gardens. Pretty cool huh? |
 |
| After the spray ground, Joel and Rachel wanted to go on one more ride. |
 |
| Vroom Vroom! |
