seashells by the seashore.

Meant to blog this yesterday, but apparently I'm turning into a blogging slacker already ;)
On Tuesday we usually go to the Farmer's Market and August's dance class, but our good friends also had the day off, it was a million degrees, and we all wanted to escape our little town.  So we did.  We headed out to Monterrey to visit the aquarium and the ocean beach.  The aquarium is pretty expensive so we've never taken the kids, and I haven't been since I was a little girl myself, so we were all pretty excited to finally go!

(actually, Callie was just excited to get out of the car after 2 hours!)

But first, we had to stop for pictures at the Bubba Gump Shrimp place, even though the kids have no idea who Forrest Gump is....

 Inside the aquarium we saw and learned about all sorts of sea creatures:

Jelly Fish....

Sea Dragons....

Leopard Sharks....

Libby showed Callie some Rays...

and Daddy showed Callie what life looks like "under the sea".

we got to touch hermit crabs...

and Libby's favorite, the Sea Star.

We also learned that 2 year olds don't really grasp the concept of "giant ocean below"....

We saw how waves happen...

and learned about the real home of Nemo (the coral reef!).

Cadence bonded with some penguins...

and August talked the ear off of one of the aquarium workers at the touch pool

We stopped to play in the whale and dolphin learning area

And last but not least, saw Mommy's favorite, the ADORABLE otters! <3

After a full day at the aquarium we stopped for some pizza and Fro-Yo.  Because all their nut containing items were in a separate area, I felt ok giving Libby some too.  She was VERY excited to get a treat!!

Libby's fruity treat!

I couldn't decide between pumpkin spice and Pom-Raspberry, so I tried to do them both in one cup

The girlies and their yogurt!

By the time we left it was nearly dark but it would be an injustice to drive all the way to the ocean and not put your toes in the sand, so we made a late night pit stop at the beach!  It was cold and foggy, but it still brought me that sense of peace that I always feel when I'm watching the waves crashing onto the sand.  In fact, it almost felt more magical, with the moon right there, pulling the ocean's tide.  I <3 the sea.

August + Cadence still had fun digging in the sand, despite the fog and darkness!

red leaf, yellow leaf.

Yesterday we were supposed to go apple picking, but things came up with both families we were going with, so it got postponed for another day (hopefully soon!).  Instead we decided to do some crafts with my friend Shawna and her family.
We decided to do some fall keepsake paintings, using the kids' arm/hand-prints as a tree trunk, and little dots of paint on their finger as the leaves.  They didn't quite understand how close together the leaves should be, but they still had a lot of fun and the trees still turned out super cute!

 

After making our fall trees, we read a story about the life of a sugar maple tree. titled Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

The kids were sort of itching to go play instead, but they still seemed to enjoy the book. 

We sent them out to try to find leaves in the yard after, but they weren't really interested, so we just let them play instead.

I tried to make pizza dough in the bread machine while they played, but I hit the button one too many times and ended up baking it (as a quick bread!)

note to self: check what number you pressed before you hit the start button!!

.....so we went out to dinner instead.  I was sort of upset with myself after, we're pretty short on money and with the place being super crowded and the food not being all that great it wasn't a very enjoyable use of our money.

Overall, though, it was a good day! It really inspired me to do more crafts with the girls, AND to hang up their artwork around the house.  I put our little handprint trees in our kitchen and it already feels more bright and cheery, and the girls are so proud to see them there.