Before the Return to College

Before Bean went back down to SD for her LAST semester, we had a few more adventures!

She and I went to Pescadero State Beach for the low tide and saw a gorgeous rainbow right after we arrived.

We had fun poking around in the tide pools for a couple of hours. Nothing particularly unusual, but lots of sea stars, crabs, limpets and chitons.

And maybe not so adventurous, but we had a cozy afternoon of reading by the fire on Sunday, which was delightful.

And then, that Thursday, Bean, Peanut and I went up to Dodge Ridge to ski and snowboard.

It had snowed a couple inches the night before, and a couple of feet just a few days before that, so we actually had some powder runs! Bean did her first double black diamond and I did a powder black run for the first time in a couple of decades. It was a lot of fun. . .

until the last run of the day, when we pushed Peanut a little out of his comfort zone, and abilities for that point in the day. He had done a level 4 lesson all morning, and then was practicing his turns all afternoon, and I wanted to do one last run with him before we left, but probably shouldn't have picked something more challenging. Between the wind, the cold, and the exhaustion, he decided it was easier to slide down on his butt for awhile, poor kid. Hopefully we can end on a better note next time.

We had dinner and games with friends on her last night.

We all hate to have to say goodbye, even Poppy. She loves her "baby" time with Bean.

And then, because we wanted one more fun day, I followed Bean down to Monterey on her drive back.

We went to the aquarium for a couple of hours,

and managed to at least quickly see pretty much all of the exhibits before we grabbed lunch and then said goodbye.

Glad I got to send her off! It's hard to believe that she's almost done with her bachelor's degree. We can't wait to see what this next chapter holds for her.

 

Spring Break, Weekend Together

We only had 2 days with everyone home this year, so we headed to one of the most beautiful places to hike on Saturday.

Pt. Lobos in Monterey is an incredible park, right on the coast with ocean on 3 sides.

The views are just amazing.

We did a 7 mile hike along the bluffs.

We watched cormorants nesting,

and found a deer wandering along one hillside.

Found a couple of monkeys in the tree, haha.

And we made it to the tide pools just in time for low tide.

We found several types of anemones, crabs, snails, limpets, and chitons.

Lots of tiny treasures.

So glad that both of these kids came home to spend their break with us, and that they got to see each other.

It was a wonderful day together.

 

A Magical Day

I've had several people recommend hiking at Point Lobos State Park in the last year, so when the inland areas were heating up, and a fire was causing smoke issues around Sacramento where we'd originally planned to spend the weekend, a day on the coast sounded just right.

We got a beautiful mostly foggy hiking day and absolutely fell in love with this park.

We did 6 miles of trails mostly along the coast and then circling back across the peninsula here.

I love that even though we don't have spanish moss on this coast, we do have lichen that looks a lot like it. 

This area is covered in lace lichen.

Love the rugged coastline, too. Seriously, getting to hike in forests, but within sight and sound of the ocean for much of the day, too, was magical.

We also saw a few different animals. This deer was wary of us, but obviously not too scared because it got really close.

So many brown pelicans

We even saw a few jellies that were big enough to be visible from up on the cliffs.

More of that beautiful coast. . .

Those 6 miles of hiking were more of an amble. We took all day to do the loop, with lots of stops to enjoy the view, look for animals, eat. . . It was fabulous!

And after such a HOT week in Livermore, the temps in the 60s were a huge relief.

Lunch stop. There are a couple picnic areas, and those are the only places in the park you are allowed to eat, so we stopped at one to make our lunch.

Warm soup on a chilly day is a favorite hiking meal for us. Don't know why it took us so many years to figure out that we could eat hot food on the trail even if it's just a day hike, but now that we have, we do it a lot for the longer days.

Quick stop at the tidepools and we found quite a few things. Crabs,

purple urchins, a bat star, limpets and chitons.

I probably took over 100 pictures of the coast--so many different views along this trail.

Lots of sea caves, too.

Back on the north side of the peninsula, we stopped by the whaler's museum which is housed in an old whaling shack. It's small, but lots of cool history from this area.

And the rangers were so incredible. We stopped to talk with two different pairs who let us look at birds and seals through their telescopes.

Black crowned night heron.

We didn't see much in the way of sea mammals (at least, that were alive) at Pt. Lobos, but a stop at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey gave us as many sea lions as we could want.

A few were swimming around, but most were beached on the shore.

And we saw the only sea otter of the day from our table for dinner. Love seafood with a view.

Annual Aquarium Trip

This trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for their homeschool day has turned into a favorite field trip with friends. We didn't go down the night before this year (once again, we planned this for the Monday after the Superbowl, and I didn't think it was worth paying for a hotel room to just sit in the room all afternoon), but we were joined by three other families which made it extra fun.

The jellyfish are favorites.

These boys had a blast together.

And so did these two little guys.

Our group took over the exhibit where you get to create your own fish--14 kids will do that :)

Nemo!

It was such a beautiful day! We enjoyed the outside viewing areas--there were a lot of sea otters out in the bay.

I'm so glad that this girl was able to skip school to come homeschool with us for the day.

 It's always a little hard on her to miss classes and have to make up the work, but this is a field trip she hates to miss, so she makes it happen.

The octopus was so active--we watched him crawling back and forth for quite a while.

Even on our walk from the car, we found a bunch of harbor seals beached in the protected Hopkins Marine Station.

So much fun in Monterey!