Monterey Bay Aquarium

We used to take Matthew to the Monterey Aquarium when he was a baby.  I'm not sure he fully appreciated it then.  We went to the Monterey Aquarium this weekend and had lots of fun hanging out in Monterey.

Having waves wash over us at the aquarium

Shark petting.  Ok, not really.  We thought it was a touch tank, but its not.

We could pet the rays, but they didn't want to come too close today.

Touch tank sea urchins and other things

We found Dory!

Blue Tangs (and some other fish) at the aquarium

The kids had a lot of fun in the play areas

They also liked this water play area

Checking out the kelp forest

And the otters are always very popular

We loved seeing the Mackerel (and sardines and anchovies that swim altogether).

The large tank.  We saw a bunch of smaller fish swirling at the bottom, large tuna and some hammerhead sharks.

Overlooking the bay.

Grant didn't want his picture taken.

And Emma started getting upset too.

Grant and Emma had similar expressions.

After aquarium fun we walked down Cannery Row

And got sundaes at Ghirardelli.

So messy and so good.

Thanks Monterey.  We'll be back.

Gilroy Gardens...Again

I wanted to take the kids somewhere fun this week (our fun outings have been fewer since moving).  So I took the kids to Gilroy Gardens during the week this week (we have season passes).  They have a swimming place and splash pads inside so we wore our swimsuits.  This was on a weekday so it was much less crowded than it had been on Saturday when we went before.  And Scott was at work so there were some rides we had to pass on because of the logistics of who could go on and who could go on unattended etc.  But we still had fun.  Here we are waiting to ride the train.

On the train.

We made our way over to the pool area after that.  The pool was small and crowded.  Matthew and Anna would probably have wanted a little more water to swim in (it was a small and shallow pool) but I think they still had fun.

They had some small waterslides there that John and Grant enjoyed.

And lots of fun toys in the water that the younger three enjoyed.

I was happy 'cause I found a chair in the shade right by the shallow kids area.

Emma ran between me and the water most of the time.

After about an hour most of the kids were ready to move on from swimming.  It would have been a lot funner if it weren't so crowded I think.  We got Icees to cool off.  

And funnel cake to share.

Grant enjoying some refreshments

We rode this car ride (like Autopia at Disney) many times.  

Grant was tall enough to ride alone and he was excited!

Matthew on the car ride

And Anna

John rode on the car with me and Emma.  He drove our car for us.

Anna and Grant riding again together.

And Matthew

This was a ride the younger kids could ride on. 

Strawberry Sundae!

We ended up staying all day long and this was our last ride of the day.

Emma had fun riding too.

We had a long and fun day at Gilroy Gardens!!

Unpacking Fatigue

Aaaaand we're still unpacking.  A month ago we arrived at the house.  The unpacking was quick at first but now its slowed down a lot.  The boxes left to unpack (of which there are many) are a little more difficult.  I was telling Scott I think I have unpacking fatigue, which is a thing I just made up.  Self explanatory - I'm tired of unpacking and yet there is still much to do.  Our house here is as big as our house in Illinois (which was quite a bit smaller than our house in Colorado), but with less storage space.  And our "office" in Illinois was packed with boxes and things.  I want our office here to be less cluttered (ergo useable) but I'm having trouble figuring out where to put everything.  We've gotten rid of a lot of stuff already.  Everything is pretty much unpacked except our bedroom, the office and the garage.  And summer is slipping away so I'm torn between getting stuff done around the house and taking the kids to do fun things.  So, here are a few more pictures of our exciting unpacking adventures over the past few weeks.  I was happy when our kitchen island got uncovered.  Scott helped make that possible.  Then I could start cooking.

Making meatballs on one of the first cooking days in the house.  Chopping garlic.

We are in garlic country, after all.  The produce here, of course, is just amazing.

Lately we've been enjoying strawberries, corn, peaches...the garlic even seems fresher.

But I digress...

Our backyard from one corner of the yard.  

Landscaping still to be done.  We have a landscaping plan done up and at least one landscaper coming in next week for an estimate.  It's been hard getting landscapers.   There is a lot of new construction finishing up right now in the area and apparently available landscapers are in short supply.

View from the other corner

One of our side yards

The other (skinny) side yard

And here is our yard finished....no, just kidding.    This is a neighbor's house with the same floorplan as us.    We're planning on doing something similar but with a smaller (concrete) pad and more grass in its place.

Here is the larger side yard on the neighbors house.

Kind of similar to what we are planning.

No, our yard is still dirt.  Dirt and nails.  :o

Here's Emma crying at the back door after I told them they couldn't play outside in the back anymore that day.  They keep tracking that fine dirt in the house.  And the kids get dirty.  Need to get it landscaped.

Cleaning Emma up.

Here's the loft in a pretty clean state.

It's always fun for the kids when we find new items in the boxes we unpack.  

To Emma everything is new.

So Emma and Anna share a room now.  Their room is pretty much unpacked.

We've moved furniture around since this was taken.

We built this dresser a week or so ago.  It took Scott and I several hours.

But it turned out nice.

Grant and John share a room also.  The floor in there is usually covered in a thin layer of Legos.  And as of this past weekend their closet is all fixed up (they have a walk in closet that up until recently was full of boxes) and they're ready to go!

And here is the other dresser that we built for John and Grant.

We built this one slightly faster than Anna's.  We'd already been through it once.

There are still a few things the builder is fixing up in our house.

We met with them 3 weeks after we moved in to give them a list of things to fix.  Our (laminate) flooring is having issues.  This week they replaced a panel on the garage door that was dented when we moved in, painted it, painted and puttied nicks and scratches on the walls, replaced our peephole and replaced a nicked shower tray.  Emma celebrated our three week check up with the builder by writing on the wall a couple more times.  I scratched some paint off trying to get her drawings off the wall, so I guess we'll be touching it up again.  :(  All writing implements have to be stored up high now.

She looks so innocent.

And a third dresser we built - we turned our Malm dressers into Ikea for the recall and got some new ones.  This one is for Matthew.  Now the kids have dressers.

The dresser ended up in the corner here in Matthew's room.  There's Grant looking at some of Matthew's stuff.  If Matthew knew Grant was in there I'm sure there would have been "words" about it.  Scott also put together four bookcases over the past month.  He's amazing.

And amid the unpacking that's left to do, summer is still calling.  It's getting close to school starting again.  Anna and Grant will wear uniforms to school this year.  Here's Anna with some of her uniform clothes on.  I think the uniform is going to be hard for Grant.  For some time he has hated putting on church clothes.  He won't even wear cargo pants 'cause they remind him too much of "church pants."  His favorite pants are sweatpants. So I may get some push back on the uniform thing from him.  We'll see.  Sigh.  Back to unpacking.