After visiting our friend Becky, my sister Lisa took us on a little tour of the coast in Monterey.
The first stop was at the beach where the kids crawled around the tidepools looking for hermit crabs. Elora was very happy to pick them up and move them around. I hope the crabs weren’t really attached to certain pools, because they all ended up with a new home.
Grandma and Marion hanging out by the tidepools. This trip was slightly less interesting for Marion, especially since I didn’t have any towels or blankets to lay her down on and I didn’t want her to eat sand…
Elora showing me a pretty shell she found. She loved looking for animals and shells in the water.
Amanda helped Oliver look for pretty shells. He really liked digging in the sand and looking for special rocks and shells. The kids could have stayed here for hours looking for treasures!
Next we stopped at the lighthouse. It is actually still used, but slightly less cool now that it is a big lightbulb and not a big fire. No one has to live in it to take care of the light because it is all on a timer. It looks a little different than I was expecting a lighthouse to look.
There was a really great climbing tree near the lighthouse, so the kids decided to play in the tree for awhile before heading back to Aunt Lisa’s house.
Elora was so excited to show her little sister the tree and the view of the ocean.
Elora loves Aunty Lisa. It was nice to stay with Lisa’s family for a few days, the kids had a great time getting reaquainted with their cousins and aunt and uncle.
Elora had a “sleepover” in cousin Jessie’s room every night, and the kids loved running around outside looking at the chickens, collecting eggs, and finding wild turkeys. I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of the view from their house, there is a beautiful view of the valley and green rolling hills from their deck.
Last stop, the feed store! There were all kinds of animals in back of the store and the kids LOVED getting to see them all. Oliver marched back and forth talking to this donkey.
The kids also really loved the turtle. Turtles are one of Oliver’s favorite animals. There were also sheep, ducks, rabbits, chicks, turkeys, and an emu. So many neat things to see!
Elora petting the donkey. What an awesome feed store. It kept the kids happy while Aunty Lisa found all the things she needed — the only problem was getting the kids away from the animals so we could go home and make dinner! I think the kids wanted to move into the feed store…
We loved getting to see Monterey, it must be such a fun place to live with so many things to see! I hope next time we can have a longer visit. We ended this one with poor Jessie getting poison oak, and Oliver getting a really bad chest cold, no one getting much sleep the last night, and driving home early in the morning… but we are still so glad we went and got to spend time with Lisa’s family. We can’t wait until our next visit!
