Monterey Bay

We took a mini vacation to Monterey Bay at the beginning of June. It's not incredibly far from us but we decided to make it a two day trip.

We planned on the girls napping on the drive down. Here's Roxy's response to that idea: 

Wide awake. She did eventually fall asleep, but not for anywhere near as long as we hoped.

We went to Carmel Beach in Carmel. The houses on the streets leading to the beach were ridiculously cute. We brought swimming suits but we planned on using them in the hotel pool, not the beach. Good planning because it was 63 degrees and windy. Ain't nobody want to get in the frigid Pacific when it's that cold outside! But if you're at the beach you have to at least wade, so we did.

(After we were home from our trip we Skyped with my parents and Pippa told them "I chased the ocean!" Adorbable!)

The ocean was a lovely turquoise color (it was always brown / grey in L.A.).

This was Roxy's first time at the ocean but we didn't put her in - it was too cold!

Since it was too cold to get in the ocean we walked along the beach, built sand "castles" (more like sand mounds and sand pits), buried feet, and ate lunch. Where Carmel Beach hits the cliffs there is a golf course. At first we thought it might be Pebble Beach Golf Course, but then realized it wasn't big enough.

Roxy was scootching around and got tired of being on her tummy so she just put her face in the sand to rest /whine.

LOVE that Roxy gives snuggles.

After we were nice and chilled from the beach we took 17 Mile Drive to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The girls fell asleep which was the plan :)

17 Mile Drive is supposed to have great ocean views but we weren't seeing any. Turns out we went the wrong way on the loop and were driving the inland part. Oops. We were about 1/3 of the way into the loop when we realized that.  The girls hadn't fallen asleep yet (and we really needed them to so they would have energy to finish the day) so we turned around and did the ocean view part. There were great ocean views but by then the girls were asleep so we didn't stop.

The girls woke up right as we pulled into the parking lot. Downtown Monterey is odd. Some cute shops but some run down places. Some Victorian style bed and breakfasts and some adobe liquor stores. It couldn't quite decide what it was trying to be.

Anyway. Monterey Bay Aquarium is pricey - $40 per adult, but kids under 3 are free. There were some decent exhibits and some ok touch pools (only crabs, sea urchins, and the like), but not worth $40 per person in my opinion. Maybe $25-30 per person. I liked the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach (about halfway down this post) much better.

T wrangling the kids.

Pippa loved the penguins!

Hanging out in a pretend penguin egg.

Pippa with "Nemo" fish.

For me the best part of this aquarium was the big kids area.  There was an indoor playground for older kids and a play area for babies. We spent a lot of time in these areas.  You might be thinking that I liked the Aquarium of the Pacific better because I visited it without kids. And this is a small part of it, but really, A of the P has better exhibits, better feeding shows, better touch pools, and cheaper admission.

Roxy on a water bed in the baby play area.

Exploring the texture wall in the play area.

We visited the Aquarium in the afternoon when it was less busy and it was still pretty busy. After the aquarium we hit one gift shop and bought a sand dollar Christmas ornament.

We snagged McDonald's for dinner and went to Embassy Suites. We chose ES because there are two separate areas (with a door between them) in each room.  Roxy goes to bed around 6:30 and no way did we want to sit in the dark and quiet and try to keep Pippa quiet and happy until she was ready for bed and then continue to sit in dark and quiet until we were ready for bed.

We ended up with Roxy in a pack and play in our room, Pippa on the floor on the hideabed mattress in our room, and us in the king sized bed in our room.  Around midnight Roxy woke. Normally she puts herself back to sleep, but I didn't want to give her time because I didn't want her to wake Pippa. So I tried nursing her, rocking her, holding her, the binky, and she wouldn't sleep. T pulled the pack and play over our bed (to get around sleeping Pippa) into the other room and finally 1.5 hours later Roxy was back asleep.

Embassy Suites has a great breakfast, but what the girls were REALLY interested in was the arcade.  We spent almost an hour "driving" these cars.

T took Pippa to the hotel pool while Roxy napped. We went to a huge playground near the hotel then McDonald's for lunch and the girls napped on the way home. Why is it that no matter how long the trip is, the last 20 minutes are the longest?

It was a lot of work but it was a fun little vacation.