Monterey Trip

Last weekend, we went to Monterey for our "babymoon" - one of our last weekends together as a family of three (well, four, but the fourth no doubt spent the weekend curled up in Baby Boy Gibbs's crib - meowing happily when her cat-sitter arrived to feed and play with her).

Here's a picture of Natalie in the "Splash Zone" at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Friday. She loved the giant blocks more than the tiny little fish they had in this section... at first I was worried that this meant she wouldn't be that into the rest of the fish at the Aquarium. No need to worry about *that* though.

Looking out at Monterey Bay from the Aquarium.
On the Otter slide!
Her favorite exhibit was actually Outer Bay. Check out the link for a cool picture - but the exhibit was a little dark for us to try to take pictures, plus it was always crowded with people. It was super-cool though! After our trip to the Aquarium, she now gets really excited to point out "fishies" anywhere she sees them.

Here are Natalie and Tyler at the Dennis the Menace park - designed by the creator of Dennis the Menace. This park was right across the street from our hotel. It would have been even better for a child a little older than Natalie, though we did spend a really fun hour here on Saturday morning.

After the park, Natalie had a spirited lunch in our hotel room. Tyler and I love it when she makes this face! She worked up an appetite for "shawbees" and "beebees" - strawberries and blueberries.

Then Saturday afternoon we tried to go in the hotel's pool, but the pool was absolutely freezing... and the hot tub was too hot... so we walked across the street to the Monterey State Beach. Natalie loved finding rocks and bringing them to me for our collection. We also built sand castles and ran around a fair bit.
Let's be honest - I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time - Tyler did the running around with Natalie :-)
Below, one of the only pictures we'll have of me being pregnant. I prefer to keep the camera trained on my photogenic subject Natalie.

That whole thing Natalie's left leg is resting on? That's her baby brother. He's huge. As am I.

Sunday, our non-sleeper woke up at 4 am and didn't really fall back asleep... so we left Monterey very early (8 am) in order to make it home for a proper nap here at home. On the way back to San Francisco, we drove up Highway 1 for some sightseeing.

We couldn't resist stopping at Pillar Point, our favorite Northern California beach. This is the beach where Tyler asked me to marry him almost four years ago! Natalie has been here a few times.
It was a gorgeous day with a nice low tide. Tyler and Natalie did a tiny bit of tide-pooling while I relaxed. Then it was back home for a nice long nap for Natalie and I! A very fun weekend was had by all (even Reese, who apparently took several nice naps with the cat-sitter - who also happens to be one of the workers at Natalie's daycare)!