We did it. We successfully went on a vacation with our two children and we all survived to tell the tale. Tim and I have not taken a vacation since Lilybelle was 7 months old. It always seemed like it was too much work to actually leave our house and go somewhere. But I got tired of not going anywhere and felt like Claire was old enough to try a small vacation. We decided to drive down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I figured it was a short enough Here are a few of the highlights.
We dropped Sophie off at my parents' house Monday morning, hung out for about an hour and then took off. I had a movie and TV shows downloaded on our various devices and a bag and cooler full of snack foods. I felt prepared. About an hour into our trip, Claire started screaming uncontrollably, and in the midst of her fit, Tim announces that the tire pressure warning light just came on. I thought we were doomed to never go on a vacation and should just turn around, but instead we turned into a gas station I took Claire out and into the little store and Tim put air in the tire. I got the girls some candy and we set off again. This time the tire was fine, and Claire discovered that chocolate (in the form of M&Ms) can fix all her problems. Just kidding, but she was happy the rest of the trip.
We got down to Seaside, CA where our hotel was, got checked in, and checked out the hotel pool. It was a huge hit. Afterwards we had dinner and settled in for the night. We decided that Claire was probably big enough to sleep on the hotel bed and so her and Lilybelle shared the sleeper sofa in our room. Lilybelle did great; Claire did okay. She got up a few times, but always went right back to sleep.
The next morning we got up, and had breakfast at the hotel. It was delicious. I'll leave it at that. We then got in the car and took the short drive into Monterey Bay. Since we got there early in the morning we were able to get free parking not too far from the aquarium. We then walked around Cannery Row and checked out the beach because that was the whole reason Lilybelle went on vacation (she talked about the beach nonstop in car ride down). When the aquarium opened we got right in since I purchased our tickets online. Best advice that I found online for our trip. The line to buy tickets was already around the building before it even opened!
We read about the history of Cannery Row and then made our way to the touch exhibit. This is were you can touch a sting ray and other sea plants and creatures. Tim was super excited to touch the sting ray. It was a dream from childhood fulfilled. Lilybelle did not want to do it, in fact she didn't want to touch any of it; not even the kelp. Sigh. I thought this was going to be the highlight for her. Next we made our way to the penguin exhibit. It was cool to see the penguins swim and we even stayed for the feeding. After that we wandered around the aquarium seeing the various sights with various degrees of excitement. They loved the sea otters, Lilybelle loved the jellyfish, and Claire was mesmerized by the school of sardines. Claire threw a fit off and on throughout the aquarium as we struggled to get her back in the stroller between exhibits. If I had to do it over I would have left both strollers at home and just let them walk and carry them. That's the one thing I'd recommend and would do differently.
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After the aquarium we had dessert at Ghirardelli. In my opinion, you have to have a brownie ice cream sundae when there is a Ghirardelli near by. After that we got back in the car and drove along the coast line and went to Point Lobos and hiked to China Cove and Gibson's Beach. We then drove down to Big Sur. After that we had dinner and went back to the hotel. The next day we drove back home, and the drive home was much smoother than the drive there. Thank you M&Ms.
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| Harbor Seals with pups at China Cove |
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| Playing in the sand at Gibson's Beach |
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| Gibson's Beach |
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| The coastline from our car |
