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.

Lula’s Chocolate Factory

I finally hit upon a CHAPTER book that the boys love enough to read, even without me. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I wish I had read it when I was a kid. It’s so good! Funny, yes, but also FULL of great life lessons.

Joshua and Caleb give it all their thumbs up.

I would love to say that I timed it on purpose to coincide with our CC group’s Chocolate Factory Tour field trip…..but no. It was just a BEAUTIFUL coincidence. 🙂

They were so excited!

Lula’s Chocolates is a family operation. We got to see them making these delicious goodies. You can buy them at any Whole Foods Grocery Store! Of course, we partook in some chocolate-y goodness while we were there. We also wore really nifty hair nets.

That’s Dan, checking out the sea salt dark chocolates. Oh my, what a wonderful combination it is!

chowing down on caramel

Don’t worry. We’re always careful about the nut thing. Isn’t it so sad that these poor boys can never eat a box of assorted chocolates, thanks to their allergies? We purchased dark chocolate sticks for all of us. The boys were VERY happy.

By the way, Lula’s ships their delicious, handmade treats to all 50 states. You can order here: http://www.courtofthefountains.com/lulas_chocolate.html

Not a bad field trip, eh? Shout out to Vanessa for organizing this!!

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While my parents were here, we wanted to be sure that we all got the full California experience…..soooooo we went hunting for movie stars….

Ha!

No, that’s not us at all. We don’t even know who any of the current stars are, really.

Nah, we figured a more authentic California experience would be if we…….all got Marijuana prescription cards….NOOOOOO just KIDDING!!!  We took our guests WHALE watching, of course!!!

You didn’t really believe me, did you? I got that prescription idea from a conversation we overheard yesterday. We were at the library, and as we parked our car, I told Alan, “I don’t know about this space. There are an awful lot of youths (high school kids) hanging out back here..”

We laughed, locked our doors, and as we got out, we overheard one girl tell her friends, “So my mom is always going to the doctor because she hurt her f****ing neck, right? So I told her, ‘Mom, why don’t you let me have your marijuana card? I mean that’s money just f****ing sitting there.'”

Ah yes, young lady, aspiring to a life of selling drugs, noble idea….

The things you hear from back alleys.

THANKFULLY,  we really and truly did manage to go whale watching!!!

We called up the whale tour people. We thought we’d take my parents, and reserve a whole group of 8. We were a little disappointed to learn that actually, children must be at least 5 years of age to ride the boat. We had to split into two groups. Alan, Joshua, Caleb and I rode out on the morning tour. My parents boarded the afternoon tour. A wonderful time was had by all. Both go-rounds were hugely successful in finding humpback whales and tons of sea lions. Mom and Dad’s boat even found orcas!!!

Sorry, we only have humpback photos to share.

I highly recommend this activity. It was especially fun to watch Joshua and Caleb seeing it all for the first time. Alan and I had done this one time before, in Boston. We saw at least two humpbacks there. This tour was even more exciting, as we saw herds of sea lions swimming along with FOUR humpback whales.

Four!!!

We saw an additional one, way off in the distant literally jumping out of the water. It was a spy hop move, where they push their whole upper body straight out of the water, vertically! No, I didn’t get a photo of that either…..I was not on a roll with my camera. In fact, I finally gave up altogether and handed Alan the camera, so Alan took most of these pictures. I am not overly steady at sea.

These are in backwards order of our trip day, but rearranging this many photos is way too much work, so here we go. 🙂

I love Joshua’s outfit: Alabama sweatshirt, Boston hat, touring in California. That’s a military kid for ya.

“Where are you from?” they ask us.

“Um, uh, uh…” Such hard questions!!!

Yep, that’s our humpbacks.

Notice the blow hole spray.

All those little things you see in the water are the tops of a sea lion herd, out hunting for fish with the whales.

Caleb said, “Those whales sure do like to eat those sea lions.”

“No, no,” I reassured him, “Those whales only eat little fish.”  Blue whales only eat krill, but humpbacks are less picky. I think they are in town for the anchovy buffet.

I love how these sea lions LEAP out of the water. I’ve seen a this few times from the shore too.

There’s something extra fun about managing to get a tail picture!

Here’s a better sea lion herd photo. I just love these guys.

My FAVORITE of all these sea mammals is actually the sea otters. At one point and time, these guys were believed to be completely extinct, but thanks to the protection of countries around the world, they are staging a come back. We saw about twelve of these on our kayak trip today. They make their homes in the kelp. More on that in my next post!

Did I mention that sea otters are my favorite?

Things were so exciting this week with the grands here. I wish they could always be here!!!

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