Spring Break Fun 2016

My lovely and talented sister Glori made this adorable doll for Cara this Christmas. As soon as Cara opened the box, she said "Ohhhh, cuuuuute!" and gave her a hug. She looks perfect sitting in Cara's room.

Cara loves her new doll and so do I!

Kiddos all ready for church.

We have had a fun spring break. Brett's preschool visited a beach that has a small aquarium and dolphins and seals to watch. There is a whale watching spot, too, but we didn't see any whales on this visit.

The views were spectacular!

All the kids standing under the bones of a whale flipper.

The kids enjoyed learning about starfish and playing with some hermit crabs.

Miss Stefanie comes up with the best field trips!

We have taken several trips to the park. We finally found a swing big enough for all three of them!

Cute Cara picking up Jason from school.

My favorite outing was to see the redwood trees in Santa Cruz. My friend Martina moved out there and we visited her and explored a forest trail to see the enormous trees. 

One of my favorite books growing up was "My Side of the Mountain". It is about a boy who finds a hollow tree and lives there in the forest with his pet peregrine falcon. This park has a tree that has a small opening  by the roots. You can crouch down, enter the tree, and find a big, hollowed out space inside with plenty of room to stand up and walk around. A person could definitely live in this tree! There are also falcons in this forest, so it was fun to imagine that book coming to life. This is a picture of all the kids in the tree. It would make the best fort!

Cara in the tree. It was pitch black, so she was a little nervous.

It was amazing to see trees that were centuries old. 

Strangely, they had a little western town right next to the redwood forest!

We go to Safeway almost every day. We are famous there.

The other fun trip we took was to Natural Bridges Beach. Sometimes I get nervous about the idea of driving to the beach by myself and managing the kids there, but we had so much fun this time that I am going to try to do outings more often. 

Every time we have gone to the beach, the water has been freezing and the kids have had no interest in swimming, so I didn't even bring swimming suits. This beach had a little inlet water area that was nice and warm and shallow enough for Cara to wade around in. My kids were the only unprepared ones getting their clothes soaked or running around in a diaper.

A perfect day at the beach!

This is the only natural bridge left. There once were three bridges. This beach is also a major gathering place for monarch butterflies. We just missed them this year, but if you go in December or January, you can see thousands of butterflies resting here.

Jason getting buried. It was a very sandy ride home in the car, but worth it! It's fun that the kids are getting old enough to make these outings fun instead of painful. We were all kind of disappointed when Jason and Brett had to go back to school!