I have a reputation when it comes to cameras. My daughter likes to tell me I’m just a bad photographer (for the record, I never claimed to be one.) I like to think of it this way: I embrace the moment. And sometimes I embrace the moment so much that I forget I have a camera with me.
I joke that I know it was a good trip if I have very few photos to show for it at the end of it all. While this is not always the true test of a trip’s quality, it does apply on more occasions than I’d like to admit. Could the thought have occurred to me that I might want to show my sweet yet absent husband what we did on the trip? Did I wonder if the grandparents I was with would want a memento of our trip? Or the blog?! Pictures are great for a blog!
(That thunk was the sound of me hitting myself in the head.)
I was embracing the moment. Right?
I won’t make the excuse that I was solo parenting on a long and chaotic trip . . . oops, that was an excuse, wasn’t it? (grin) I suppose I could plead the blonde curse. Nah, most people wouldn’t buy that one. Especially my husband who has seen me highlight my hair.
Ok, ok, I’ll quit trying to excuse my lack of photography, share what I did take, and try to fill in the rest with commentary.
Easter Sunday with my family was a fun and informal affair as usual. Egg dyeing, easter egg hunts (yes there were in fact 8 of them – four where we hid the eggs and four where Towhead hid them), followed by food and the mandatory games of Uno. Towhead can’t resist playing cards when she sees her Old Nana. After more than four months apart there were a lot of card games that week, trust me.
Tuesday my parents, Old Nana, the kids and I drove to Monterey, CA to meet up with Grammie and Poppi (Mr. A’s parents) and visit a bit with my aunt and uncle. The Monterey Bay Aquarium was amazing, as always.
The following day we drove south to the Carmel Mission. Nope, I don’t have pictures of our tour there, though I wish I did. The current restoration work probably would have made pictures less than optimal, but the history and artifacts, the gardens and fountains were fun to look at.
There are so many layers of history in a place like this, and it represents so many things to different people. I liked watching and listening to everyone’s reactions to the place, and what it made them think of. For my mother-in-law it represents the history of her faith. Throwing pennies in the fountains was easily the best part of the trip for the Moose. My father-in-law talked about the persecution of Catholics after the missions were secularized by the Mexican government in the 1830s. Towhead let her imagination run wild, imagining which gate the horses came through and who cooked the huge amounts of food to feed everyone. She even let herself get freaked out a bit by some of the gravestones.
Growing up as a kid in California I can still remember building a mission out of sugar cubes in the 4th grade. So for me visiting the missions has a feel of nostalgia and, as silly as it sounds, of ownership. This is an integral part of the history of my native state, the state that 5 generations of family before me have called home. It’s funny how that pride becomes stronger the further away I move from it.
From the mission we drove to Point Lobos for lunch and short hike.
After that it was a relaxing evening and dinner with this wonderful family of mine. The next morning we stopped by Denis the Menace park in Estero Park to let the kids get some of their wiggles out before the long car ride back to Sacramento. When I first read about this park I kind of dismissed it thinking, “Ok, great. A park. That’s nice, but I’d rather take my kids hiking, or to the tidepools than to some fancy hyped-up park.” I will be the first one to admit that I was sorely mistaken. Paid for by the city’s hotel tax, this is a fabulous, enormous, and well done park that was well worth the visit.
At the end of the trip I realized what I didn’t get pictures of was my dad and his twin sister enjoying lunch, Lil’ Moose chasing the birds on the pier overlooking Monterey Bay, or the wonderful afternoon we spent swimming in the hotel’s saltwater pool. I will also never forget Towhead and I coming back from an aquarium touch pool to find my father-in-law sleeping in his wife’s lap as they sat next to a napping Lil’ Moose.
I left wanting more. Two full days, sandwiched between two half days, was not enough to see all the sights this area of the coast can offer. I will add to the bucket list whale-watching, tidepools, more hiking at Point Lobos (though the fields of poison oak make me a little hesitant toward that one), Fisherman’s Wharf and Cannery Row, and the lighthouse at Point Pinos near my aunt and uncle’s house. And there’s more museums that we didn’t even attempt because of the kids’ ages.
It was nice to come home though. Even though it meant taking off the shorts and sandals we had donned and putting back on fleece and warm socks. It felt good to spend time with Mr. A, snuggled in by the fire and remembering what it feels like to have all the pieces of our immediate family in one room.
Mr. A and I even managed to sneak in a date night to listen to Jane Goodall give a lecture at Gonzaga University before he had to leave again for one more grouse capture. But more on that one later. . .
Duck Duck Moose 