A Good Summer Send-Off
Summer may be officially over, but the nice, warm weather (and the actual calendar) made us indulge in Summer fun a little longer.
We planned a few play dates to take advantage of the tourists’ departure: we went to the zoo with Torin and his mom and dad, and explored new paths. Krista and Eric are the experts when it comes to the zoo, and know all the shortcuts. We saw giraffes, polar bears, monkeys, meerkats, tortoises (getting busy as always), snakes and other assorted animals. We even took the sky ride back, saving us a long uphill walk, while providing wonderful aerial views of the zoo and the bay. Keegan loved it. Another highlight was the zoo train. How fun, for them…
Another fun tourist attraction is the Birch Aquarium. While not as extensive as the Monterey Aquarium, it is still fun to visit, and you can’t beat the view. It was the perfect place to be in an unusually rainy Sunday. Jada and Sharon met us there. They also have a nice kid play area, which was Keegan’s favorite part.
Eaten by Bruce the shark?
The outside fountain
We also had the chance to use the little inflatable pool some more, by having Hannah and family over. Buying that pool was definitely little money well spent. The kids loved splashing in the Shamu pool and jumping around.
After a few more games, it was time for art. They were so serious and concentrated, and it was interesting to see the different “styles” in action: Keegan mixed all the colors in large quantity till he had a big gray blob on the page, while Hannah was carefully choosing colors and keeping them all neatly separated.
We had dinner outside: the kids had their little table while the adults were relaxing at the big table, and baby Natalie, was happily playing on the floor. The kids also had a cute fruit composition, “funny fruits” as Keegan called it; I was hoping to encourage them, especially Keegan, to eat some fruit: no such luck. No matter: we were more than happy to help out.
After dinner we had story time, tickle time, thanks to the Tickle Monster book, and just plain goofing around.
Throwing themselves over the bean bags
Making funny faces
Finally, Keegan got to experience his first boat ride. My friend Gary, whom I have known since college, owns a fishing boat, and he took us for a nice tour of Mission Bay. Keegan liked to pretend he was driving…
His favorite part, though, was spraying pelicans and cormorants with a water gun. He just could not get enough of it.
Fortunately, Gary knew a spot where they gather in large number, alongside the California sea lion (you can distinguish them from seals thanks to their color and because they do have ears). They are incredibly loud, but it is kind of cool watching them lounge around.
Thank you Gary!!!! We had so much fun, we will have to convince Gary to take us out again.
Even if summer is basically over, we took advantage of a great labor Day sale and bought a family tent. We have been talking about going camping and we definitely needed a new, larger tent. We went all out and got a 6 people, two rooms one: even if the divider is a thin piece of fabric, it is great to have our own space. And since I am small, I can actually stand inside. If our fall is warm and sunny as usual we may be able to get our quick camping trip. If not, we will do some backyard camping till next spring. Keegan really liked it.
Matt and I also had the chance to say goodbye to Summer in a beautiful way. For our last date night before my trip, we went for a 2 hour kayak sunset tour of la Jolla Caves. It was beautiful! While we did not see the tiger sharks, we enjoyed the beautiful caves, and plenty of Garibaldi fish, pelicans, cormorants and of course sea lions, in their natural habitat: this area of la Jolla is a marine preserve. It was fun to see them swim or dive alongside us. We also took a close look at the caves, and even entered into the largest one. We tried eating seaweed (salty and slimy) and enjoyed the most beautiful sunset, sitting in glassy water. What a great way to conclude the season!
Comments are off for this post