We’re having Field Trip Week at Pacific Christian School.

See, Alan is out on Fall break, so the timing is perfect for maximum family fun.

First, let me tell you about Abalonetti! This place has an exciting local’s menu, food that every single one of my children like (as in yes, they have pizza), and delicious sea food.

I’m the kind of person that picks a favorite restaurant and then stops going to all other places. I have now picked my place. Every time I get to eat out in Monterey, this is where I will be.

But you didn’t come here to read about where to find the best calamari, so let me show you what else we’ve found.

We had the sweetest family evening. After eating at Abalonetti, we walked around the wharf gawking at seals and sea lions. John David was so delighted with it all. I didn’t think we’d get him home without a struggle. However, we managed to just stand around and soak it in long enough to satisfy even J.D.

It is a pet peeve of mine for people to call seals “sea lions,” and vice versa, so let’s review:

The plain brown ones with long flippers and ear flaps are sea lions.

The multi-colored (mostly gray) ones with short flippers and no ear flaps are harbor seals.

Now that we have that settled, I have so much more to show you!

JD was so cute about it. One seal popped up, and he pointed and said, “Mama”, then he pointed at the next one and said, “Daddy”, and then the next one, “Baby.”

Now onto our day at sea! This was a different day, and we left the two small boys with Nonna.

Monterey Bay is eaten up with humpback whales right now. I’ve never seen so many in one place. Everywhere we would turn around, there was another couple of whales either nearby or in the distance. We probably saw 20 different humpbacks.

We boarded in Monterey, but then we had to ride the boat 45 minutes (ish) to the water off Moss Landing, where all the whales are.

There was a mega-pod of long-beaked common dolphins out in force, and watching them made my day. I have never seen so many dolphins at one time, literally over 100.

Good-bye dear Pacific!! In the spring, Daniel will turn five, and we will be back out there for another ride.

The post A Day at Sea with the Dolphins and the Whales appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The best way to experience Monterey Bay is to grab a paddle and board a kayak. This place is amazing!!! Sea otters, seals, sea lions, pelicans, kelp, and divers are things you are guaranteed to see first hand.

Would you believe that some of the Monterey Bay locals actually don’t appreciate this at all? Many of them put these sea lions, that I find so exciting, right into the “nuisance” category!!

It surprised me too!! See, on the Eastern U.S. shore we have no such animals. We have manatees, dolphins, and gobs and gobs of sharks, but none of those sun on the rocks so that we can examine them up close.

California is an animal lover’s dream. This is so exciting!

Sea lions own the marina area. Seals can be found in other areas. They are very segregated, these animals.

I have yet to find a seal and a sea lion hanging out together. I have; however, come upon a sea otter sunning with seals, but I don’t have time to go digging for that photo just now.

DaddyO and I share a few common interests. One of these is nature photography. DaddyO regularly sells his pictures to publications. I need to learn how to do that!

On this particular day, Alan was the one taking the photos. They didn’t want the good cameras to get ruined in the kayak.

Alan said, “April, I’ll take your phone, so if it gets ruined, we’ll get you a new iphone.”

(Alan just got a new one, which he did not want to destroy.)

Guess what happened. He actually did get water in my phone. My phone was older than his, but I’m still not due for an upgrade.

I’m still holding out for that iphone. My water-logged phone, which will no longer go to the home screen or back, has now been replaced with Alan’s old Droid 4 from 2012.

It doesn’t work well either. What good is a phone that only calls people?  😉 haaaa

On the upside, my productivity should increase, as I now have no smart phone to read Facebook with. I miss you, dear Facebook friends! I will be back, to “like” all the pictures you can upload of your babies soon.

Sorry. Back to sea lions:

This sea lion is still super young and excited to check out some people. He may become more jaded as he gets older, gets jabbed by a few boats, or is just treated poorly.

One such sea lion, which was thankfully on the other side of a fence, actually spit at me today.

It was gross, and I saw food particles flying out. I was far enough away that I did not have any fish bits land on me. I haven’t fully recovered from my shock of feeling completely grossed out.

To be fair, I was staring at him while he was napping on the rocks. How rude of me! I don’t know what my problem is. I just think they are so fascinating! It is so terribly hard not to stare!

Kayaking in Monterey Bay never disappoints. This place is amazing, and I am just so thankful for the privilege of living so close to it!

Please keep Caleb in your prayers! His oral surgery is tomorrow. All of his teeth will be fixed at once, and then the children at church will not be able to call him “Broken Tooth” anymore. Yep. Childhood hasn’t changed all that much, has it?

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Jennings and I have been friends since I was 19, and Jennings was 18. Now we are in our 30s. We have gone from bright-eyed, hard-working college students, who both seemed to hardly ever get a date, to what we are now…..one married mom of four and one successful flight attendant and aunt extraordinaire. Jennings was there the night I went on my first date with Alan. She was one of my bridesmaids. She already knows the back story. That’s what’s so wonderful about ‘old’ friends! They already ‘get it’! No need to explain anything. They already know anyway.

Now when I say we were hard-working college students, I can’t emphasize that enough. We were not your lazy party girls. No, sir. We meant business. We were also both recipients of the same National Alumni Academic Walk On Scholarship. Jennings and I both, at some point during our University of Alabama years, held down two part-time jobs a piece, while going to school full-time. That’s how we became such good friends. We worked together as Resident Assistants in the largest freshman girls’ dorm on campus.

Jennings is the friend that you feel like you can tell anything to, without feeling judged, or at least she doesn’t let on that she’s judging me…..ha!

“Oh, I’m never going back to the regular work world. I really didn’t care for ‘working,'” I admitted to Jennings last week. I don’t think she judged me…

lol

We had such a wonderful time, touring the California coast. Jennings is quite the world traveler; however, she has never been to my particular area of Cali, so we had a great time exploring.

The boys went almost everywhere with us. They had a BALL, and I do mean a ball.

We took the boys to the beach on two different days. Yes, I had to clean up a whole lot of sand, but it was worth it.

JD, before he soaked himself

Poor JD.

The sea just beckons us to join it, and so he tried. He timidly toddled, just barely into the surf, when a wave suddenly came and knocked the tiny fella right over. And when you are 20 months old, and so very small and inexperienced, you don’t know what to do, but to lay there, rather stuck, and cry.

The boys were partially laughing at the drenched-in-his-clothing JD, and partially laughing at their mother. That wave took me by surprise too, and I shouted, “Oh! My boots!” I instinctively backed up, but then I saw my baby, stuck on his back, and jumped back in and grabbed him.

Don’t worry. We’re talking one half an inch of water, no harm done, and two adults there to quickly grab him up.

Now I am off to sleep. I was up until 1 am last night with my friend Julia, and a room full of 11 and 12-year-old girls. I know. I never thought I’d write that last sentence either, but I’m helping Julia with a Wednesday night class of pre-teen girls, and Julia decided to throw them a sleep-over.

But that’s a whole other story.

We just love hosting our friends and family. Next week, my parents arrive! Alan’s parents are visiting in March. Then in July, a whole family of friends from Virginia is coming!!  🙂  So exciting!

Come back anytime, Jennings! Next time, come on a weekend, and Alan can take you out kayaking with the sea otters!

sunning sea otter in Carmel

“A world without friends, I don’t think I could bear it.”  ~Jeff Foxworthy

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I love going to Point Lobos State Park. You are always guaranteed to find seals.

To kick off Alan’s big week of vacation time, we’re enjoying a big, fat staycation. First stop: Point Lobos State Park. I took such a ridiculous amount of pictures that I will have to split it into two posts. No surprise there, eh?

There’s something extra exciting about seeing ocean waves crash into mountains of rocks!! Point Lobos is situated on the north end of Big Sur, and I cannot wait to explore Big Sur further this week!!

Yeah, actually that’s not a sea lion. He’s a seal. Doh!

The boys had so much fun climbing on the big rocks, wading in the water, and running the trails. Even John David got down at the end of the day. He sat down in the pebbles and just dove in. He literally laid down in the pebbles and rolled around in them. It was adorable. Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead by that point…

Caleb keeps asking to go back. I wish, Caleb!!! Soon!!!

“Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”        Isaiah 1:17

Hope you all have a great week of doing well!!!

The post We Love Seals! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.