Who's Really in the Cage?

For my birthday my husband had gotten our family a season's pass to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and today is the day to use them! It has been at least 2 years since I've been to my favorite close-by place....Monterey! We usually like to get away there once a year, but time just got away from us. It is a little less than 3 hours away from our home and a wonderful place to visit. We had a nice continental breakfast at our motel in Santa Cruz. The boys, of course, took full advantage and piled their plates with food :) The drive was only about 45 minutes from Santa Cruz to Monterey and so we arrived there quickly. It was nice to not have to stand in any lines having the passes already. We spent the day exploring the different exhibits. There were a couple added since we'd been there last...the seahorse area and the flamingo area. I took SOOOO many pictures today that it was incredibly difficult to pick which one to use for my blip photo. It was between the jellyfish pictures, the friendly bat-ray that kept coming up out of the water to see us, and the picture of my boys watching the penguins. I picked the latter picture only because I thought it was a funny picture. Looking though the glass on my side and seeing the boys looking at the penguin and the penguin looking at them, it was really difficult to tell whether they were in a cage or whether the penguin was in the cage. I'm wondering if that penguin thought the boys looked like a strange species. :)

After a full day exploring the aquarium...the boys said their tummies were talking to them since we had skipped lunch altogether. We knew it was then time to head out. We decided to walk on over to Bubba Gumps for dinner. Yummy!!! Loren and Liam chose the 'Shrimper's Heaven' and Landon went for the kids meal of popcorn shrimp (he really wanted just the shrimp, so he peeled the breading off). I chose what my oldest chose and my favorite is always the coconut shrimp. Gary went for the shrimp scampi pasta and liked it. We had to flip the 'Stop Forrest Stop' sign over several times for the waitress to stop and refill the boys' blueberry lemonades...then flipped it back to the 'Run Forrest Run' side. We left there full and happy but still decided to go to Nestle Tollhouse to pick up cookies to take to Dennis the Menace Park. Landon had never remembered going there, since he had only been 1 yr. old at the time we last went. The oldest two always want to make a visit there when we are in Monterey. It is such a great park. They played for about and hour and ate their cookies and then, unfortunately, we had to head home. Gary had tried to reserve a place in Monterey for the night, but because of an event going on they had raised the hotel fees to exorbitant prices! We got home and put the kiddos to bed after a very busy, wonderful day.