Day 29: Monterrey Bay

We only have a few months left here in Northern California, so we are working hard at blasting through our long (literally, it's written on 4 foot long butcher paper and taped to the closet door) bucket list. 

Today was the first nice day in like, FOREVER. And by nice I mean it rained in the morning and was going to rain tonight but by God we were going to go out and DO something!

Monterrey Bay Aquarium has been on my radar since we transplanted to Northern California in 2015. But, the admission cost is high and it's a solid 3 hours away and so we just kept putting it off and putting it off, figuring we'd go at some point. 

Some point came today! We woke up early, skipped hockey camp and made a run for the Pacific Coast. 

We've had our fair share of aquariums in our lives. Calen's first aquarium was the Seattle Aquarium when he was a year old, and in New Jersey we lived a couple hours away from an amazing aquarium in Camden (not Cam's namesake of course). So my expectations were a little high, but everyone always talks about Monterrey so I was excited to see what it had for us in store. 

You can't beat the view, that's for sure. It's nestled right on the Pacific Ocean. They even have a little tidepool viewing area on the balcony, and if you look far out in the distance, a pair of yellow buoys indicated where they pump actual seawater into the aquarium's exhibits. 

Inside, this place is spectacular. It has jellyfish of ALL sizes and shapes, an octopus or two, some sharks, sting rays a trillion fish, and even penguins (which we watched them feed)! There were touch tanks, lots of fun kid activity stops, and 3 story high observation windows. They even have a glass tunnel that you can stand in and wait for the tide to spray over you.

Jellyfish!! Little tiny ones

Standing "under" the tide

Selfie with a penguin! He's closer than it looks

Lunch break and SHARK COOKIES

The highlight for the kids (Calen especially) was the sea otters. They were VERY active during our time there, and we went back to see them three times. One in particular (Kit) was Calen's favorite, because she liked to swim around sucking on her thumb. The other two were very mischievous, pushing their sandbox into the water and jumping into it like a raft. (I didn't get very many photos of them because they moved so fast). 

Sea otter swimming by!

We spent a solid six hours in the aquarium, and even once they started closing the doors we were sad to leave. The boys picked out a souvenir (Calen a stuffed otter, and Cam a stuffed leopard shark), and we walked a block up the street and went and played in the sand and (very cold) water. The boys and Daddy decided to challenge the tides and try to climb this huge rock before it turned into an "island" and then shout at whatever pirates were off shore to steer clear of their claimed fortress. 

Boys are the best. 

But really, what an amazing family day. One for the "core memories" (if you've seen Inside Out)

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