Dave's family visits

Dave's family came to visit and meet Chloe last week. Because of his dad's failing health and dialysis 3x/week for the last few years of his life, it had been five years since his mom's last visit to California.

She didn't want to fly alone, so Dave's sister Christine came with her two kids - Noah (16) and Celestial (14). It was their first time visiting California.

One downer was that we were sick for the first few days of their visit. There have been so many mean viruses going around! Dallin had a stomach virus, and Dave, Brennan and Levi had fevers and such that lasted for days. My mom, Kristen and Nathan and several of their kids were sick too - some of them for weeks. We were SO glad our company didn't get sick - whew!

We set up our badminton net and Foosball table, which gave people something to do while we were hanging around the house.

I love this picture of Levi on the zip line!

I pretty much stayed home with sick kids and Chloe while they managed to get around a little bit. Thursday they went to Farmer's Market in San Luis Obispo, where they ate ribs, watched a play snippet and stuck gum on the wall of Bubblegum Alley.

Friday (after taking snickerdoodles to Tyler's class for his birthday) we signed Spencer and Tyler out of school a couple hours early, and they all went to Morro Bay. They shopped, watched big waves, ate crab and fish, and bought lots of salt water taffy.

At the Salt Water Taffy place we like to go to, the owner let Tyler have a lollipop with a cricket in it.

Tyler: Oh cool! How much does this cost?

Owner: $2.

Tyler: Oh, darn!

Owner: How much money do you have?

Tyler: None.

Owner (laughing): Okay, you can have it.

Noah chose this hat and sweatshirt for his birthday.

On Saturday we went to In-N-Out for lunch. We were hoping to go to a beach again, but it rained. That was the other bummer about the trip. The first couple of days were sunny and warm, but then it was rainy, cold and windy.

On Sunday we watched our church's semiannual General Conference on T.V., and Dave's mom went to mass at the San Miguel Mission. Then we had my family over for dinner and cake. Tyler and Noah share the same birthday, so we celebrated them together.

On Monday they went up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I stayed home with Levi and Chloe.

I probably should have put my regular lens on my camera before I gave it to them, because my new one is a little finicky if you're not used to it. Group shots are particularly hard because the focal length is so small and it's hard to get them all in focus at the same time. I just thought it would have been perfect for low light pictures of fish.

I think Celestial really enjoyed it.

Tuesday was their last day here, and we all went to the beach. First we went to see the elephant seals. The adults had gone back to Alaska, leaving just the babies and teens. It wasn't as exciting as the last time we went, when we saw mating and fighting. And it was freezing cold and windy!

I don't have any pictures of Celestial at the beach. It was too cold and windy for her, and she spent most of the time in the car.

At least it was warmer and less windy at Hearst Beach, which is why we usually like to go there.

This was Chloe's first trip to the beach. Poor thing pooped through all her clothes and had to be wrapped in blankets because I forgot to pack a change of clothes for her. I have since bought a diaper bag so I can be more prepared for outings.

Dave and Noah went kayaking, but the waves were bigger than normal and flipped them over a few times on their way out.

Noah is such a cool guy. I'm glad we all got to know him better.

Christine was going to go boogie boarding, but she put her feet in the water and decided it was way too cold for her, even with a wet suit on.

The boys spent the entire time building a dam and sand castle.

And eating, of course.

Brennan loved having Spencer pull him around on the boogie board. Kids don't seem to notice the coldness of water. Plus they tell me it isn't nearly as cold in the creek, which is why they spent all their time there. I'm glad I was finally able to get out of the house a little bit while they were here.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

It rained every day for a full week before Christmas. The kids were off school, and they were so excited about Christmas they were literally bouncing off the walls. So I took them to the aquarium one day, since we still had a couple weeks left on our family pass. We went a few days after Christmas last year, and it was way less crowded this time. We went to the snow after Christmas this year, and a guy on the ski lift told Dave he had been skiing the week before and there hadn't been nearly as many people. So we're learning that the week before Christmas is the time to do fun stuff like that.

I love jellyfish. I always end up with more pictures of them than anything else. They're just so graceful and artistic and beautiful.

It stopped raining about halfway to Monterey. Twelve years ago it rained on our wedding day and half of our honeymoon, and the day we woke up in Monterey was sunny and beautiful. We've loved it there ever since.

I just can't get enough of this toothless grin.

They saw sea otters eating out in the bay.

Spencer took this shot from a little tunnel for kids. He loves to take pictures too. I was nervous handing him my camera, but he was super careful.

What is it about sharks that makes them so freakish? This was just a little guy. The big huge tank was closed for renovations. If you're thinking about going to this aquarium, wait until it opens in June/July.

Spencer tells me those aren't his eyes/mouth, but it sure looks like it. He was so cute bobbing up and down.

Kelp forest

Cuttlefish.

Their absolute favorite part of the whole aquarium is this overhead wave. We stand under a glass arch, and every 15 seconds or so a huge wave roars over us. We always spend more time here than anywhere else.

Spencer was such a huge help with the boys. He kept Levi happy (no easy task) and found Brennan when he got lost...

That was sure scary. We were in the Splash Zone, which is a loud, crowded, play section (this picture in not the Splash Zone. I was so shaken up afterwards that I couldn't take any more pictures). Mostly Brennan and Levi stayed in the stroller the whole day, but they got out to play there. At one point I looked down and Brennan was gone. I yelled for him but there was no answer. I said, "Guys, Brennan's lost!" Spencer immediately ran out of the section and found him crying and surrounded by adults on the bridge, about to go to the other side of the aquarium. He thought we had left. One thing I've learned about lost kids - they don't stay put, like we tell them to. They freak out and run to the exit because they assume we've left without them, when actually we are right around the corner.

Afterwards we stopped at the Dennis the Menace park so the kids could climb on the huge train.

Tidepooling

Some of my family came for part II of Ben's wedding, and we had fun hanging out with them all week. One day we went on a walk along the bluffs.

But we all stopped to watch a rattlesnake. This created a lot of excitement, as you can imagine.

I love this hike because there are so many beautiful views along the way.

No one fell, so that was good.

When we reached a beach access, everyone ran down to explore.

It was super low tide, and there was a huge area of tidepools, teaming with life.

This was definitely the highlight of the day. It was even cooler than the rattlesnake.

Sea anenomes, crabs, sea stars, sea urchins - it was awesome.

It was hard to pull ourselves away. But people were starving at this point, so we had to hurry home for dinner.