Happy Mother’s Day! What better to share on this treasured day than some adorable seal mom and pup pairs from my favorite spot in the world, Point Lobos State Park.

This particular beach is not a seal hang-out for most of the year. However, when it comes time to birth babies, late winter/early spring, this tiny beach, completely surrounded by rock cliffs, becomes a true seal nursery. This is NOT a zoo. This is the real world, animal style.

ALL of these photos were taken by Aunt Janet, photographer extraordinaire.

This first mom and pup pair are the funniest. This little fella’ was rambunctious, robust, and ready to do some more swimmin’. Mama was trying to take a nap, and he kept sneaking off to the ocean.

She’s trying to rest, but off he goes…

Still going….Even for animals, some little ones are just tougher to raise than others.

Bet you’ve never seen a seal run, but this Momma did. She cut him off at the pass, barking up a storm at the little rascal.      “Nope! We are NOT going back out to the ocean. You don’t know what you’re doing. You are shark food. Now get back up on that beach, lay down, drink your milk, and take a nap. Don’t you go sneakin’ out to this water again without me, you hear. Bark bark bark bark bark!!”

Here she is, at the top of the photo, leading that baby back on shore. She had to keep holding him down with her little flipper.

This momma had a younger, smaller pup to bring in, and she just didn’t have her job figured out yet. Poor little pup was trying so hard to beach herself, but the waves kept washing her back out to sea.

Oops. There goes baby again. Mom needs to learn to get behind her.

nursing seal baby

Every few minutes, you see another momma and baby seal coming in or going out. I could have watched all day, but I had taken a few elementary school boys with me who could only enjoy it in 5 or 10 minute increments.

If I were a seal, I’d hang out here too. Actually, I’m not a seal, and I still like hanging out here.

Look closely to see the baby seal on the momma seal’s back.

This Mother’s Day is coming at perfect timing for me. I have felt a little down lately, mostly due to my mystery low-grade fevers. They zap my energy, and leave me feeling confused and a little hopeless.

But Mother’s Day reminds me of my most basic and happiest job. I am first and foremost a mom, and I am tickled pink to be Mom to our four precious sons. I always considered myself a “girly-girl”, so it’s ironic to me that I am now the mom with the baseball nails, trying to learn basketball lingo, and passing rules about not bringing slugs into the house. When I brush everything else aside, every other worry, every other commitment or hobby, this is the job that I most cherish: being wife and mom. I was never so happy as I am when I’m being mom.

-Wiping noses

-Trying to convince JD to poop on the potty.

-Reading These First Four Years to Joshua and Caleb

-Reading Green Eggs and Ham to Daniel and Caleb

-rocking JD in the rocking chair

-pushing them in the swings

-cooking their dinner

-buying their clothes

-hugs and kisses

-talking through their problems

-teaching them about Jesus and praying with them

-watching them play baseball

Oh, I love it all so much. What a wonderful gift to be entrusted with. I hope I can walk worthy of this calling.

And I’m thankful I don’t have to go it alone, like the seal mommas.

This guy makes being a mom more doable and more fun. I could not do this without Alan.

Mother’s Day is a reminder for me this year. It’s a reminder of how blessed I am. Healthy or not, I have a glorious life, full of purpose and every good thing. I must remember to be thankful and always share with others what I have. I am renewed with joy. What a blessing.

I better get to sleep. Alan and Caleb are making me french toast in the morning, and I’m super excited. I say Alan and Caleb, but they will probably all insist on helping.

Happy Mother’s Day, y’all!

The post Darling Photos of Seal Moms and Babies appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

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.

Do you like our grass? How about the kid by the road with a toy gun? haa!

That’s quite a claim to make isn’t it? THE BEST? Is it really the best? Surely something is better. I said it myself that Destin, Florida looks like this:

I mean wow.

Well, you know, you gotta love the one you’re with, and Northern California IS 70 degrees.

70.

In July.

I’ve decided something. “I ain’t leavin’!”

No, I’m only kidding, but I do get to live here for a solid year yet. We have been doing the whole ‘lazy days of summer’ thing lately.

I can’t take too much of it. Isn’t that ridiculous? We so badly want to have nothing “to do”, and then when I have nothing more pressing than “laundry” and “Clean the bathrooms” or even “take the kids to the pool” on my to do list………..it’s dull!  I have no stress-strain on my heart, and I don’t know what to do about it!

It’s so ridiculous to feel that way. Right now Daniel and JD are playing together in their tiny sandbox. Joshua and Caleb are playing with their neighborhood friends. All I have hanging over my head is a kitchen that needs cleaning.

That’s actually something to be thankful for. A part of me does enjoy it, but this weird thing happens. When I only have a small, manageable amount of things to do, I don’t feel like doing ANYTHING at all.

What is that about? Am I the only one? Have any of you felt that way?

This morning I was out walking, and it was 70-something degrees and BREEZY, and all I could think was, “This is the best place ever.”

I hope you’ll all join me in praying for rain for this state!

Ha! I can hear Alan inside explaining to Caleb why we “don’t tell our friends the end of movies they haven’t seen yet.”

Daniel and JD are bringing me buckets, asking me to pour water in them.

No.

We have taken so many pictures this summer that I’d like to share. I will just have to do these in several parts. Here’s what we’ve been up to!

JD always has a hand full of cars.

Daniel learned how to build his own train tracks.

I happened to remember that when Caleb was 4, he was already building his own train tracks. Dan always has his older brothers and me to do that for him. I finally had to just tell him, “Daniel, you are big now. You can build these yourself,” and he can!

Sea otters

Seals at Elkhorn Slough

A seal pokes his head up to check out Alan and Caleb .

Chocolate pudding.

He saw an old photograph of himself, as a baby, making a mess eating chocolate pudding. Daniel took it upon himself to “do that again.” I wasn’t so happy about it, but I took a photo for you.

Plants Vs. Zombies……because he found it at a friend’s house, and I was just happy he was reading.

Little kid jump time

Southern biscuits. You can take the girl out of Bama, but you can’t take the Bama out of the girl. I’ve been baking these since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

Playing Uno is fun, except when JD tries to play it with you, and then it’s not fun at all, so you HAVE to keep a sense of humor about it.

Joshua took my camera outside with him and took photos of himself and his friends.

the kids’ hideout…..Actually, Joshua said this is the girls’ hideout.

the boys’ hideout

We signed Caleb and Joshua up to play for the same soccer team. Daniel BEGGED to play too, so we will have THREE soccer players this fall.

the preschool hideout

Daniel made this. I thought it was cute.

what I look like right now

We have gophers! Or moles. They live in holes in our front yard. Just please don’t tell me they are just rats. I will be so disappointed!

That’s right! Even Dan got to kayaking. He’s a daring one. I just caught him standing on top of our patio table, ON A SCOOTER. Don’t worry. He put the scooter back on the ground.

dead sea lion, washed up on shore. We see a lot of this. I think there must be 1 sea mammal per square foot in this bay. There are so many!

I thought this looked like a sweet father-son moment.

Bird Island, Point Lobos

I got some ADORABLE photos of Xavier and Zoe reading to Daniel and JD, but I didn’t post those because big kids get embarrassed easily about being seen in their pjs. Well, Joshua does anyway, so I’m extra careful, but here’s one good photo of Xavier. We enjoyed their visit so much. The boys are still talking about it and wishing to see them again.

I had the best time hanging out with Amy too. It’s a great reminder that I need to become more social. I was way too much of a hermit last year.

Joshua’s BFF

Playing cars in the dirt: this is what we do the most of this summer.

JD is Joshua made over. They all enjoy reading with mom, but Joshua and JD LOVE reading.

our book corner

me and my faithful sidekick

Do you like the tiny sandbox that Alan built? JD LIVES in it now. I need to vacuum every single night. Actually, since the 4th boy arrived, I always need to vacuum every night. I’m not saying I do it. I’m saying that I NEED to do it.

I hope that you are all having a relaxing summer.

Check back with us this week! I have two giveaways lined up!

The post A California Summer is THE BEST kind of summer! appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This boy loved being in a bubble.

Alan and I herded all the boys together and ventured over to Monterey this past weekend.

The boys said things like this:

“I don’t want to go.”

“Can’t we just stay home?”

Until we got there. Once we got there, they had a ball and didn’t want to leave. In fact, Joshua developed a sudden interest in film production. He made movie after movie and “News Story” after news story.

Sorry, I am under strict gag orders to not share his movie on the blog. 🙁

He also decided not to release his movie in theatres. We asked him what he was naming his movie. He replied, “Hmmm I’ll have to think about that.”

Alan suggested, “How about The Best Movie Ever!?”

Joshua said, “What! NO! Why would we name it that? It’s not even good.”

I got a good laugh out of that one.

It was such a pleasure just to stroll along Cannery Row, Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Monterey beaches with this adorable crew of little men.

Caleb took lots of pictures for us:

We spotted this sea otter, peacefully back-stroking around the boats.

Oops…okay this next photo isn’t from our walk. But I had to share it. Caleb has been “training” Daniel, in I don’t know what, in the garage. He awards his young apprentice with copious amounts of merit badges:

Caleb’s apprentice. Check out all those badges. Maybe I should find out what he’s been training him to do…  😉

Ahem….as I was saying. Monterey:

Joshua in a bubble.

As soon as we arrived, Caleb and Joshua spotted a vendor renting out play time in the bubbles. Boy, were they excited when Alan paid the money and they actually got to play in these things!

Yes, Alan just had to join in.

Joshua wasn’t a fan, so he got out and rolled Alan around.

still too young to play in the bubble

But they could still play with each other.

She’s the patron saint of fishermen, or something like that.

checking out all the boats

It was getting dark. Can you see the big ol’ harbor seal on the rock?

Caleb took several pictures of the pictures on the information podiums.

And you gotta hear this. Most adorable snoring ever! The boys and I got such a kick out of this!

You’ll have to click on the link to watch.

JDsnoring(Converted)smaller

The post A Sunset Walk in Monterey 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.

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.