The Boardwalk and the Beach

We always love going to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. It's always interesting to see each year what rides everyone will want to ride and how they change every year. This year Lizzy got even more brave and decided to ride the really scary rides. I wish I could have seen it, but we had to split into groups so that eveyone could ride what they wanted and not take 100 years doing it.. I got to be with the little kiddies, which is fine.
Russ got to ride with Jane in his Pepsi truck, which is the same one he wanted to ride last year. I'm sure it will probably be his favorite for quite a few years.

I took Janie on this roller coaster that is kind of a medium sized one and she was a little scared but she still liked it. Janie is not exactly a daredevil, haha, she is about the furthest from it. But I think it is good to push her into doing things every so often.

Jerry really wanted to ride the boats so Russy rode with him. It was really cute that they had their arms around each other when they were waiting in line.

They loved ringing the bell and putting their hands in the water.

Anne was so content to just sit with me up in the sand and just play,while Kevy had to go and chase down Russy. But then I got a really dumb idea. I thought i would just let Anne feel the water because every kid needs to experience it. What a dummy I was. She wasn't to content to just feel the water, no she had to keep running full force into the waves and I had to keep running and getting her and then she would throw a massive fit, and then we would start over. Why oh why did I feel the need to have her feel the ocean? I should have waited until next year!! I also was dumb and thought that it would be better if we didn't put the kids into swimming suits because I didn't want to worry about having to change them out of them and deal with that whole fiasco. But that would have been way better then dealing with kids with soaking wet clothes that were covered in sand. Oh well I will remember better next time.

Janie and Nellie were insistent on wearing their swimming suits, but Lizzy was the good girl and did what I wanted (shocker) and stayed in her clothes. I felt kind of bad because I know she would have loved to go swimming but she didn't complain. Jane really should have stayed in her clothes because she didn't really get in at all, she just played in the sand.

Annie loves to get on anyones back who is laying on the ground. She does this quite often.

After the babies got out of their soaking wet and sandy clothes, I didn't have a change with me so they got to chill for the next hour in their diapers, it was awesone!

It had been a really long but very fun couple of days, and right after the beach we had to head home, which was a three and a half hour drive without traffic, but with Bay Area traffic, it was a lot longer! Thankfully my kids have learned how to be pretty good little travelers and keep themselves entertained. Sometimes thinking about doing trip and things like this sounds so overwhelmming with little kids, but it really ends up being worth it, the memories they create are worth all of the pain and inconveniences that they are.

 

 

The Mystery Spot

There is a place in Santa Cruz just up in the mountains called the Mystery Spot. It is really neat and kind of indescribable. Kevin and I have visited there once before back when Lizzy was a baby, but it was fun to go again. There is something that is really weird about it. It gravity is off or something and all kinds of weird things happen. Our guide poured water down a board and it came back up the end that looked like it was pointing up. Some people think it is some kind of trick but it really feels like there is something to it. It is somewhere fun to go anyway.

The guide did some fun little experiments with people and that made it fun.

 

 

It was fun for thhe kids to get in on it too. I think they all really liked it.

He did take this picture tilted, but Kevy and Annie really were very tilted.

Unfortunately Jarom took these pictures that are the one where everyone is tilting so much. He took them a little sideways so everyone looks even more tilted then they were, but we all really did have a lean. It was crazy. I know critics say that it is an optical illusion. but I know that when you get to the center of the mystery spot, I felt weird, really dizzy. And it was pulling you one way it was so hard to walk.

After the tour we let the kids pick out a souvineer. Russy saw this builder hat with a working light on it and it was over from there. It didn't matter that it was way more than we wanted to spend, he had to have it, so naturally Kevy got it for him because he is is only boy! He is a little spoiled! Lizzy and Jane found key chains with their names on them so thats what they wanted, and Nellie was very angry that there wasn't one with her name. I felt bad. She ended up getting some cool magnets.

We had such a fun time with our big group! I love being part of a big family!!

 

Monterey Aquarium

The craziest most awesome thing happened when we got to the Aquarium. We all parked somewhere different and we were just meeting at the front entrance for everyone to get there. I thought McKay walked up next to me and put his arm around me and said "Hey Binny", so I said "hey Buddy" and I looked up and I saw Fred my brother Jarom's baby, and Jarom not Mckay. It took me a minute to realize what was going on. Jarom and Kristen and their three little kids had just driven the last three days straight from Texas to surprise us! It was freaking amazing! We hadn't seen them in over two years and I really didn't know when we were going to get to see them again. I don't know if I would have been that brave to drive that kind of distance with little kids. It truely was the coolest thing ever!

We did have a good time at the aquarium and it was fun to see alll of the different things that we have never seen in person before, but I don't know if I would do it again with super little kids like Anne's age. The whole time she was really grumpy because she was tired, but she was totally unwilling to fall asleep. Russ was being kind of a beast too, so Kevin had to spend all of his time trying to keep him happy. But if the big girls had fun with their cousins and enjoyed seeing the stuff then it was totally worth it.

The only thing I really got a picture of was the Jelly Fish, I'm not really sure why I didn't take a pictureof anything else, I think just because it is the pictures of people that you actually want to see.

A bunch of the little cousins minus the big boys who were too cool and the babies.

Russ did enjoy sitting on Kevys shoulders. We always know that he can put him up there if all else fails.

Annie was so darn tired and I thought that if I put her in the bjorn faciing me and just walked around enough, that she would eventually fall asleep, well no such luck. That little girl is soo darn stubborn! She refused to even lay her head down even for a second. So Kevy decided to lay her down in the stroller andjust started walking around. The great part was that she eventually ended up falling asleep on the walk down to Bubba Grumps where we had dinner and Kevy and I were actually able to enjoy our dinner without a little crazy monkey triying to climb all over everything!

Little Ruby was such a little doll and it was so fun to see her as a big girl instead of a baby like the last time we saw her.

It was funny how everyone was staring at us like we were such a big group, to us it felt pretty small compared to how it can be when a bunch of us get together. Maybe it was the twelve little kids that eveyone was looking at, I guess that isn't too common of a sight, ha ha.

Kevy and I trying our hand at a selfie. We don't ever take them so we really dont know how to do it very well.

The kids liked sitting over at their own table.

Russ and Jerry had a good time together. Even though Jjerry is a couple years older they got along pretty well.

Annie looked so sweet asleep in her stroller, she ended up getting a decent nap for sleeping in a really loud restaurant.

The restaurant was right on the ocean so that was really fun.

It was so fun to see Jarom and Kristen! It is so hard sometimes with everyone living so far away and we rarely get to see them, but I am glad that when we do see each other it is always such a good time.

 

 

Dennis the Menace Park

The week after we got out of school the Muhlesteins came to visit, and thank goodness. Summer started a bit rocky for me and I was glad we had company to help keep the crazy children of mine entertained. We decided that it would be fun to take a trip to the coast and go down to Monterey and also to Santa Cruz. I was really excited because I had never been to Monterey before and I had always wanted to go there. We tried to leave pretty early so that we could get down there by lunch time and eat and then go to the Aquarium. The trip down was a bit longer than we expected with so many people traveling we had to take two stops on our 3 and a half hour journey. But we eventually did make it there and by lunch time. One of my friends that goes to Monterey quite a bit told me that if we had time we had to take the kids to the Dennis the Menace park. We decided the best option was to eat lunch there and then head to the Aquarium since it was also on the way.

It is always crazy heading to the coast because it is so cold! We just aren't used to that kind of weather. Although it did warm up and ended up being just lovely. The park was really neat and not really like any other parks I have been to. There was a bunch of different types of things for the kids to play on.

Miss Lady had to chase the birds while she ate her sandwich. She really wanted to get them!

Annie loves her Grandpa. She lets him hold her all the time.

Jane almost immediately made a little friend and they played the whole time we were there. I felt kind of bad because she was feeling a little left out because her sisters had cousins their age to play with and she didn't have anyone.

Russy went through a very timid phase where he was scared of things and wouldn't do them, like slides, but he is over that now and he had such a good time going down the slide, and this was a seriously crazy slide but he loved it.

The big girls and their cousins had such a good time hanging out together. Lizzy and Jake were really inseperable this trip. And Nellie and Matthew had never really played much together before and ended up having a grand time together.

All the cousins together.

Daddy and the two little monkeys. Although I try and call Russy a monkey and every time I do he says "I not a monkey I'm a bear!!" That is my nickname for him, I call him my Russy bear or brother bear or Sonny Bear or Blond bear or Honey bear. Yes I know I probably go a little overboard with the nicknames. But he is my Bear.

It has been really nice having my parents nearby becuase my kids love them, Annie just loves Grandma and will always go right to her.

Nellie was enjoying trying out the rock wall. She did really well too.

Its weird sometimes to think of things that you enjoyed as a kid and think that your kids have no idea what they are. I loved Dennis the Menace growing up but they kids were like "who is this a statue of?"

Monterey is very different then I was imagining it to be.I thought that since it was close to Santa Cruz that it was like it, with all of the beautliful redwood trees, but it is comepletely different. There are a bunch of these cypress trees that I dont find to be very beautiful, but maybe they just need to grow on me. I did love this shot of the harbor.