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?

The post Kayaking Monterey Bay with DaddyO and Alan appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

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

The post “A world without friends, I don’t think I could bear it.” appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Yes, I was wearing two pairs of glasses. Contacts and sea water don’t mix.

First off, if you ever get to travel to California, GO TO Monterey Bay.

There is this huge canyon underwater, right off the coast. This thing is even bigger than the Grand Canyon, only it’s underwater. Monterey Bay is also a sea otter sanctuary, and when they say that, they aren’t kidding. You cannot hang out on the beach in Monterey Bay and not see some sort of sea mammal, with your naked eye. There are sea otters, harbor seals, and sea lions GALORE here.

See, Monterey Bay has a kelp forrest, and the sea otters live in it. They even sleep in it. When we were kayaking, we’d see their little noses, asleep, poking out of the water. I was so nervous I was going to not see one and whack it with my paddle. (Don’t worry. I didn’t.)

The quality of these photos isn’t great. We took them with Alan’s cell phone.  We did zoom in on these, so we weren’t as close as it appears in the photos…most of the time.

This one is my favorite. The sea otters are very social, so you find them in groups, or “rafts.” Did you know that these guys are one of the few animals in the world that use objects as tools? They will get a stone and use it as a tool to break open the shells of their yummy sea food.

The sea gulls know what good little fisher-otters they are, so they sometimes harass them for their scraps. We humans know how you feel, dear fuzzy little otters.

There are laws. We aren’t supposed to come within 100 feet of the wildlife. That’s impossible if you are on a kayak. They will come to you. If you sit still too long, they might even hop up and join you! No, that did not happen to us. I would have FREAKED out. I LOVE them, but I respect them.

Actually, I spent a whole lot of my kayaking adventure a little freaked out, and yet I loved it so much. It was thrilling. You are just paddling along, and suddenly *splash* up pops a seal, staring at you. There was one that I’m telling you, was definitely stalking us!

It’s hard to see it in this photo, but look closely in the middle, you might see a little nose poking out of the water. Actually, it’s more like a big face with the nose pointing up. Do you see it? Gray blob. In the middle. We saw several sleeping faces on our adventure.

Monterey also has this long rock wharf that sea lions LIVE on. We paddled over there to get a look, but being close to that many sea lions kind of scared me, and we paddled away.

I did feel like we were invading their privacy.

At one point, two of the sea otters began mating, an activity which took the pair almost all the way to the sand, with the mother sea otter’s previous baby following them all the way, screaming at the top of his lungs…It was all a little unsettling and embarrassing–a real life discovery channel special.

If getting this close doesn’t sound like something you want to do, but you would love to watch the otters and seals, I have another discovery to share: The Fish Hopper Restaurant in Monterey.  It has huge windows overlooking the bay. I saw sea otters, seals, and sea lions all while eating my clam chowder. So much fun!!!

Thank you, Alan, for taking me out to do this! I can’t wait to do it again!!

I love pelicans too!

We were stretching our necks up at each other. They seem to be just as interested in us as we are in them!

A few other photos of Monterey Bay:

My dad took this one. His cell phone camera is way better than Alan’s! Plus: no fog. There’s a fog that hangs around here off and on, every day, especially in the morning and evening.

Daniel and the cutest little wetsuit ever

Whales!

Ninja John David wishes you all a wonderful rest of the week:

I guess turtles are his favorite. Haven’t seen any of those around here yet…

Want to see more of beautiful Monterey? Try these posts:

Monterey: 42 Beautiful photos

Carmel: Photos of Carmel Valley & 17 Mile Drive

California: Our 1st 3 Weeks in California Photoblog

SaveSave

The post Kayaking Monterey Bay and Chillaxin with the Sea Otters appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

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!!!

Pssst! Don’t forget to “like” my Facebook Page: Stories of Our Boys.

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My dad read my last Sea Lion Stalker post, and he pointed out that the giant Point Lobos ones are not sea lions at all. They are HARBOR SEALS.

“What?” No way. I asked the pro on the boat. She didn’t tell me that……

I didn’t ask that exactly, though….

So I went in to full research mode online to ascertain the FACTS.

Turns out Dad is right. Why does that always happen???  😉

Point Lobos boasts harbor seals, elephant seals (Those are super ugly, but we will love them anyway), as well as the sea lions.

Scroll down to learn which is which.

This is my last post, with CORRECTIONS:

I was taking my weekly stroll on the beach. It never fails. I always find either an otter or a sea lion whenever I go to the beach here. It’s so fantastic. This particular guy was swimming super close to shore. I decided to follow him. Don’t worry I didn’t go full on crazy and break a bunch of laws by diving in after him. I simply followed him on the shore. The cool part??  He noticed! He came over and checked me out! He stuck his head up, up and looked at me. I looked at him, and stuck my neck up, up too. Then he dove back in. Then he streeeeeeetched his neck up for one more look. I stretched my neck too—and I squealed. For some reason this is just so fun to me. Then he decided that he’d come as close as he should, and he dove off into the opposite direction. Such a great day! Now before I share all these sea lion (Please don’t call me the crazy sea lion lady….) photos, let me tell you what we did today:  WHALE WATCHING TOUR. Not even kidding. It was amazing. We saw whales, and we saw sea lions galore, and I loved every second. The kids got to go too. They whooped and smiled and laughed and learned. And when it was all over, I asked the marine biologist all the questions about sea lions that I’ve been dying to ask. Yes!!!

By the way, the sea lion buddy I made at the beach was truly a sea lion.

I asked her, “Why are the sea lions at Point Lobos so huge and different colored, and the ones in Monterey Bay are often smaller and just black/brown?” She said, “Those at Point Lobos are older bulls. They are all males. These in the bay are the youngsters.” Fascinating!

Only that’s NOT THE CASE WITH THESE GUYS. These guys are big fat harbor seals.

The difference? 1. the pattern on their skin

2. the size of their flippers  Seals have much smaller fins.

I love these harbor seals.

a mother seal and pup

The biologist told us that 90% of Monterey Bay area sea lions are males. The ladies tend to hang out in the warmer water. I don’t know if that’s true for the seal population.
Look closely. Those rocks are CRAWLING in sea lions. The noise and smell is overpowering. At night, we can hear them as we go to sleep. Really!

This is a perfect example of what a sea lion looks like, and they are excellent at walking on land, with their long flippers. The poor seals lack that advantage.

Caleb has joined me in my stalker-ness. He insisted on getting as close to this one as we could to take a picture. I have lots of whale and even an otter photo to share with you on my next post, so come back soon! 🙂

Well, we learn something new everyday!

“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” Genesis 1: 20-23

The post Sea Lions VS Harbor Seals: I finally figured out the difference. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

We visited Carmel by the Sea this week, and I am completely in awe at the state park we found there.

This stunning state park is called Point Lobos, and if you have been, then you know. If you have not been, allow me to introduce you to my favorite state or national park in the entire U.S of A.

Carmel by the Sea may be the ritziest area that I have ever visited. I’m used to walking through streets with shops named Gap, Starbucks, and Banana Republic. This beautiful little town was designer all the way. After passing stores such as Chanel and Oscar de la Renta, I wasn’t sure I should bother to step inside the souvenir t-shirt shop.

But somehow I managed to score myself a $15 Carmel fleece jacket:

Oh, and interesting Carmel fact:  Clint Eastwood served one term as their mayor!

My favorite thing about Carmel was not the designer shopping. Let’s face it. I love pretty clothes, but I buy most of my wardrobe at Target and the NX, BX, or PX….

(NX= Navy Exchange, BX= Base Exchange, PX = Post Exchange.  For you civilian types, those are just department stores on military posts. I find their clothes to be reasonably priced, for the most part.)

The BEST part of Carmel was Point Lobos State Park.

With its breathtaking views, seal nurseries, sea lions, sunning sea mammals of many kinds, sea otters, and Bird Island, it is by far the most incredible park of any kind that I have ever been to. This place is surreal.

This was one of the best days of my summer. We saw seals galore as well as a large colony of Brandt’s cormorants. This particular species of bird lives only on the Pacific coast.

Look on the left of the hills. See those large black squares? Those are the cormorant nests. They are all perfectly spaced.

a modern day castle, by Point Lobos State Park

Seals!!!

more seals!

As we were hiking up the hills, I told Alan, “This is just so exciting for me. This is the best thing we’ve done on this whole trip.” Alan asked, “Are you serious?” Yes!!! This place is total bliss.

If you visit us in California, I will escort each of you to this park. In fact, I think Point Lobos needs to be on our regular home-school schedule.

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:

all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Psalm 8:3-9

For more photos of seals, sea lions, and sea otters, check out some of my other posts about wildlife encounters in Monterey:

Seals or Sea Lions: What is the difference?

Whale Watching in Monterey Bay

The post Beautiful Point Lobos State Park is the Easiest Place to Find Seals in the wild Near Monterey appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.