Our First Trip as a Family of Four: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Exhausting! PART II: THE GOOD

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The great thing about the human memory is the fact that the bad memories tend to fade over time, leaving just the good ones. I've always thought that's why people in our parents' generation tend to claim that their baby slept through the night the day she came home from the hospital, or that their toddler never had tantrums. Of course that's not true, but they have probably forgotten those parts of raising children in favor of the good memories: the snuggles, their first steps, watching them sleep peacefully etc. It's probably a good thing it works this way because if not, most couples would decide to stop at only one child and the human race would have long died out! Anyway, part I of this blog was about the bad times, the nights. I'm now going to write about the good times, mostly during the day. That's not to say that there weren't any good parts about the nights. It's very endearing to see your infant and toddler cuddle up together first thing in the morning, or watch them crawl across the giant bed together to play peek-a-boo in the curtains! When I think of the nights, though, it's not these things that come readily to mind at this stage, it's the pacing-back-and-forth-for-hours-on-end-with-a-screaming-baby part that's the freshest! I'm sure that, given some time, the crying part will fade from memory and the snuggle part will remain!

On our first day in Monterey, we of course headed straight to the aquarium. Jake and Kyla loved it there, and were interested to see all of the underwater life. One of our favorite spots as a family was the "open ocean" exhibit. It's a huge tank that is supposed to mimic the open ocean. The docent apologized that there was a "bubble curtain" which obscured the view a little. They were getting ready to introduce some new fish to the tank and they had to train them not to bump into the glass! As far as Jake and Kyla were concerned, the bubble curtain was fantastic and had them mesmerized for quite some time. Once the presentation started, they turned off the bubbles and it was easier to see in. Scott and I loved watching the hammerhead sharks cruise right by us. While we have both seen them briefly in the wild, it is hard to get a great sighting without paying out the mega bucks for a trip to somewhere like the Galapagos or Cocos Islands. It was very dark and quite murky in the tank, so sharks and large fish would suddenly appear out of nowhere, just like in the real ocean. It made Scott and I want to get into our scuba gear again!

Whenever Kyla and Jake got a bit weary of looking into the tanks, we would take a play break. The aquarium is really well set up for kids and had lots of areas with play structures, hands on exhibits, and crawling/exploration areas for babies. Very impressive! By mid-afternoon, they really were tired of fish so we decided to head out and took a walk along Cannery Lane and got an ice-cream for Kyla (and we wonder why she didn't go to sleep until late that night!!) That night we headed to El Torito for dinner. I know, I know, shame on us for doing a Mexican restaurant in seafood-heaven-Monterey! I'm not a seafood fan myself, and we needed somewhere we could get kid-friendly food and service. Plus they had a parking lot right out in front! Everything aligned to make it a nice night, and we even had a great view of the otters playing in the ocean.

The next day we did the #2 attraction in Monterey, Fisherman's Wharf. We saw several large blubbery seals perched on the wooden beams below us, and of course more otters. We also saw a sign outside a restaurant that was pretty rude, stating that kids were not allowed into the restaurant. I couldn't help rolling my big old double BOB stroller in front of it to take a photo! I get it, nice restaurants and little kids generally don't go well together, but they could have said it a little more nicely! Instead, we found a cute little crepe shop and ate lunch there on the deck overlooking the ocean. Jake was asleep in the stroller and Kyla sat nicely and ate her apple crepe (while Scott and I sneakily ate banana-chocolate crepes to avoid Kyla seeing them and getting a sugar overload!) The afternoon activity was probably Kyla's favorite activity of the trip if truth be told - Dennis the Menace playground! It's a huge play structure just a short walk from the wharf but it immediately looks like a kid's dream come true. The photos probably don't do it justice!

For our third and final day we decided that we were sick of taking the easy breakfast option of Denny's. We got ready quickly, checked out of the hotel, and drove over to a cute little coffee shop that we'd seen the day before. The setting reminded me of the "Balcon de Europa" in Nerja, Spain, where Scott and I first met all those years ago! Coincidentally, we had eaten quite a few banana-chocolate crepes while in Spain, too!

Our activity for today was to head around the bay to Santa Cruz. We started by taking a drive and a walk through the university campus to spot deer among the redwood forest. We then headed to the polar opposite of this serene setting - Santa Cruz pier. Brits, this is basically California's equivalent of Blackpool. The pier is crammed full of rides, cheap fast food, and carnival booth-type games. We bought $20 worth of ride credits for Kyla. We were supposed to be in Disneyland this weekend, but when the forecast was for really hot weather, we had decided to head north instead. We figured that she could just do the rides here instead. She was a bit overwhelmed at first with all the loud noise, crowds, and general craziness. However, she perked up when she saw the Ferris Wheel. She has had a toy one for over a year now and has seen them on cartoons, and even thought that she'd seen one at the playground the day before (it was just an arched staircase, and she was disappointed that it didn't "work" and thought it might "need new batteries!") but she'd never seen one in real life. She ran over to it and watched it going around for a little while before declaring that she didn't want to go on it. Probably a good idea! She ended up first riding a very tame boat ride all by herself, then a flying dragon with daddy (but got a little nervous when it went up high) and then I took her to a choo-choo-train ride. That was a big mistake as it went inside a dark "mountain" the whole time and she was petrified, clinging to me and crying for most of it! I was afraid that she'd get nightmares from it! She didn't really want to ride anything else so we ended up giving away the rest of our credits to a mom with a daughter about the same age on condition that she didn't take her into the train ride! After this, I was pretty sure that Disneyland could have been an epic fail, and a very expensive one at that! Maybe there's a reason that kids under three years old are free!

We headed home later that day. It was fun to get away from it all as we haven't had any kind of vacation for over a year, since we went to Mexico last year when I was 7 months pregnant with Jake (he was MUCH easier to travel with at that point!) It was also a lot of work though, so we are thinking we won't be going anywhere very far in the near future, at least until Jake is old enough to put himself back to sleep!!

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