Random photos

Hiking with Val and Suzanne. These two had signed up to for a 5 day backpacking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon trip. Val, unfortunately, has been injured so Suzanne is soldiering on. She is dedicated to her training and despite her misgivings I think she is going to do awesome. They have to carry a 35 pound pack. Being she is only about 5'2 thats quite a sizeable load to be carrying! They invited me to come along on one of their adventures. We adventured in our own backyard pretty much. There is a series of trails called the Irish Hills in SLO. It was a beautiful day and wildflowers abounded.

Here are some random shots from my phone.  Ronan falling asleep eating string cheese.

These are from when he was so sick.

100 days of school!

This was on Valentines day

Part of my birthday adventure

and climbing the tree at Leslies

We went swimming afterwards and he was so tired he fell asleep like this.

You may be wondering why most are photos of Ronan.  He is a class A camera hog.  He is always telling me to take a picture of him.

Birthday celebration

So I turned the big 45 on Saturday.  To celebrate we headed up to one of our (well my) favorite places, Monterey.

We had scheduled a whale watching trip but due to rough seas, it was cancelled.  Boooo.  They did reschedule us for today.  It was certainly less windy and cold but she warned us it was really cold out and it would be rough.  So I asked her opinion about taking a 5 and 7 year old out and she said.... not a good idea.  So they nicely gave us a 20% off coupon if we want to book later.  We will be going up again in April for Sea Otter so we will probably use it then.  She said the orcas would be back then.

We stayed at the Portola Hotel.  They have a Pirates program there for the kids and each time you stay you get another level of "stuff".  This time they got Tshirts.

Instead of whale watching we went to the Aquarium.  Before heading over there we walked down Alvarado Street for some breakfast.  The boys had to pose with the mural along the way.

 The jellies experience is fast becoming their favorite exhibit.

 I like it too but the I could watch the fishies in the Open Sea exhibit for hours.  They have a new hammerhead shark.

 Puffins....

 Part of the jellies experience is a camera that makes you symmetrical like a jellyfish.

 The boys love the draw and set free your jellyfish part of the exhibit.  Ronan draws one

 and sets it free

Logan made a submarine

 One part has these tubes fully of moon jellies.

 My favorite, the secret life of Seahorses.  Hi, there!

 Sea Dragons are amazing

  a lil baby octopus

 We went to a park and had lunch,  it was quite cold and windy.  (hence the cancelling of the whale watch trip)

 Not entirely sure what they are doing here but it was Lego Star Wars related.

Although it wasn't quite the trip I'd hoped for it was fun to get away for a bit.