The DRIVE part 5

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Christy

One of the things that we were looking forward to doing most was taking Lily and Olivia to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Lily loves the aquarium in Boise and that’s super dinky especially compared to Monterey so we knew it’d be a big hit.

It’s about a 3 hour drive to Monterey from my Dad’s house so we loaded the girls up with tablets and hit the road earlyish.

This is what we saw for hours. I don’t know how many times the girls asked that infamous questions; “Are we there yet?”

In the middle of nowhere, about half way between Madera and Monterey is Casa de Fruta.

We checked out all the fun stuff that Casa de Fruta has to offer for a while to give the girls a chance to stretch their legs.

We rode the carousal and had a blast. The girls really wanted to ride their little train and we made the mistake of saying that we’d ride it on the way back because we were out of time. As you can imagine they were very upset when we got back to Casa de Fruta less than 5 minutes after they closed the train.

This was our first look at the ocean. We are on the top of the parking garage that we finally found to park at.

We had some lunch and then FINALLY headed to the aquarium.

I tried to plan this trip to the aquarium so that we’d be there on a day when they had no special events scheduled. I failed, big time. It was World Ocean Day and the place was packed.

Even packed we tried to have as much fun as possible.

Olivia succeed a little more than Lily at first.

Lily finally got into it. She still wasn’t thrilled about the crowd, but was so caught up in all the fish and fish stuff that she enjoyed herself.

I believe Lily’s trying to hug the lobster.

I managed to find a way to do crafts. I was so happy and so was Lil.

I became somewhat obsessed with the jelly fish.

Princess Olivia with the Jellies.

Hey a sea turtle.

And more jellies.

Some kind of upside down jelly.

Lily and Olivia in a jelly fish symmetry display.

Insy winsy jellies.

Then we found the sea horse room. These guys are pretty cool.

These are some kind of funky sea horse, I wish I could remember their name.

I became almost as obsessed with this guy as with the jellies. He’s a leafy sea dragon if memory serves.

We finally found the touch pools after looking for them all day, but they were so crowded that even Olivia didn’t want to play with the fish anymore. That was fine with us because we were all pooped.

I had really wanted to go down and play on the beach a little before we headed home, but it was very chilly and super windy so that was out and we headed home. We did stop at Casa de Fruta and like I said we got there right after the train closed. We grabbed sandwiches from the deli and headed home. Both girls fell asleep before we got home, which was really very late, but normally Lily doesn’t sleep in the car these days.

Random Mobile Shots

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Christy

We are in Montana right now having a blast with our chosen family. This is just a quick post with a few pictures of what we’ve been up to, a more detailed post will come on the heels of the California trip posts.

On our way through Kennewick, WA we stopped to have a picnic. We stayed and played on the swings for a few minutes.

Lily playing with Aunt Becky‘s legos.

Two heads are better than one.

Me and Lil at breakfast at The Buffalo Cafe.

My eyeshadow <3

Lily had a stinking blast playing xbox kinect with our friends Anthony and Maggie’s son Conrad.

The DRIVE part 4

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Christy

After we got done swimming we ate pizza while KK finished making dresses so we could take them with us. She made them for her Granddaughter and Olivia, but it fit Lil so we borrowed them for the day.

I got the girls dressed after their bath and we went outside to take some pictures.

Olivia was all about the pictures, Lil was totally over it.

The DRIVE part 3

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Christy

After the super fun swimming adventure we got home way too late to give sleepy girls a bath so that happened early the next morning.

I don’t have a lot to say about this series. I think it’s just super sweet how these girls are together and I had a lot of fun documenting it.

The DRIVE part 2

Posted on July 18, 2013 by Christy

This is part 2 in the yet unknown length series from our CA trip.

Just like last time we visited Lily and Olivia spent all of their car time with tablets and having a good time. It is also really nice that Lil still sits backwards so she and Olivia face each other and can talk easily.

After my Grandma’s funeral Waldo took these pictures of Lil and Olivia being silly.

I love how they are together. I grew up with lots of cousins that I was very close with. I sad for Lil that she doesn’t have that in her life all the time, but at least she gets it when we visit.

The next day while Olivia was at preschool our little Trio went to Walmart (Target was way too far to go right then, unfortunately) and stocked up on stuff to entertain these girls. Silly us, we didn’t really bring anything to play with so fixed that. Those toys were some of the best investments we’ve made in a while.

We took some of them everywhere with us to keep them busy.

Hungry Hippos at my Grandparents.

Tea party at my Dad’s.

Fishing at my Dads.

One day we decided to go swim at my Aunt KK’s. Man that was fun even though Waldo decided to take his phone for a swim. That part was no fun. Waldo put his phone in the pocket of the swim trunks he was borrowing and said to himself “wouldn’t it be funny if I forgot my phone in my pocket”. When he got outside I wasn’t ready to get in yet and the girls wanted to play so he did the Dad thing and jumped in with a big splash and started playing with Lil and Livi. A few minutes later he realized his Oops. Between playing with the kids in the pool; Waldo, myself and my Aunt tried different things to help save the phone. Spoiler: none of it worked and we went to the Verizon store the next day and upgraded Waldo, which turned into us switching phones and I got the upgraded new phone once we got home. I have the best husband.