1st Day of School for Mckenna

Yes, now it is Mckenna's turn. Mckenna starts her very first day of school today. I'm excited for her. So far she is anxious but we will see what happens when she gets to her new kindergarten class. She has the afternoon class. There is one boy from her daycare that is in her class.

She will be going to before and after school care on the school grounds. The facilities seem pretty nice and it looked like the kids that were there were enjoying themselves.

Tiya and Devyn Start School

Tiya and Devyn started school today. This is Tiya's first day of High School and Devyn's first day of Jr. High. They were both nervous at first but quickly got over it. They seemed to really like the new experience. Tiya got a surprise today when she walked into her math class to find her older brother Steven. I guess Steven's jaw dropped too. I'm guessing that Tiya will end up helping Steven with homework.

This is Devyn's first experience with changing rooms. He liked it a lot. I guess Devyn doesn't know where to hang out at lunch yet because Tiya has him scared that certain types of people hang out in certain areas. I suppose he will figure it out before too long. It was much simpler when I was in school. You just hung out with your friends.

Big Sur and Monterey

So I am finally getting around to posting photos of our camping trip. Yes, I am a procrastinator by nature but I had legitimate reasons this time. Since our camping trip I broke my ankle and am just getting over the flu. Talk about adding insult to injury.

We left on Wednesday morning. We didn't get up early. We just got up when we woke up, packed the car and left. I put the dvd player in the back so the kids could watch movies on the long drive. We made it to Limekiln State Park (our campground in the Big Sur area) in about 5 hours.

This was our camp site. We were right in the trees with a beautiful river right behind us. The river was so loud that at night that was all you could hear.


This is the river behind our tent and a couple of deer that were in front of our tent one evening. They came down from the hills to feed. The area has so many deer and seals-it's incredible.


Eating breakfast.



Pictures around our campsite.


Tiya and Mckenna playing in the river where it emptied into the ocean.

The park's name comes from the actual kilns that were used to produce lime in the 19th century. There is a nice hike up through the redwoods to the lime kilns. Limestone was quarried above in the hills and brought down by pack mule. After the lime was baked, barrels of it were slid down a wire to the beach area and taken by boat to ships anchored off the inlet.

Here is a picture of one of the kilns that we hiked up to and Tiya crossing the river.


We also hiked up to the waterfall and Mckenna found a friend as usual but this time it was a tree.

Thursday was Devyn's birthday so we drove up to Monterey. We were a little further from Monterey than I would have liked. It took us about an hour, on a long winding road, to get into town. Tiya and Devyn didn't do to well with the drive but we made it to town without anyone getting sick. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium where we spent a good portion of the day.



These are pictures from inside the aquarium. It is such an awesome place to visit. The kids had a lot of fun and Mckenna didn't want to leave.

After the aquarium we took Devyn to dinner for his birthday. We went to Bubba Gump which was within walking distance of the aquarium.

The kids ordered special drinks and they sang happy birthday to Devyn.

We stopped along the beach a little on the way back to camp. The kids loved playing in the tide pools and on one of the beaches they even braved the cold water and got in briefly.
The next day we drove into Monterey again and took our time exploring the tide pools and coastline.

Mckenna discovered Hermit Crabs and from that point forward she wouldn't let me pass one without picking it up for her to hold and believe me there were hundreds.

We drove through 17 mile drive where the kids got to see a lot of deer and seals. We had another nice day in Monterey. On our way back to camp we went by the grocery store and got hamburgers to cook for dinner. We spent Saturday around the campground hiking and playing down on the beach. We had a nice fire and saw a slide show that they had at the ranger station about Elephant Seals. I had no idea how large these animals got. They were saying that this time of year the elephant seals were just south about a half hour on the beaches so on Sunday while driving home we stopped along the side of the road and watched them.

We had such a great time! I think next year it might be Yosemite.