Monterey

Last Saturday, to celebrate Mom’s return to California, we drove to Monterey. Monterey is down the coast from Santa Cruz. When you are at the beach in Santa Cruz and you look out over the ocean, you can see the hills behind Monterey. Two of the many major attractions of Monterey are the Aquarium and Cannery Row. Our intention was to go to the aquarium and eat at one of the many seafood restaurants on Cannery Row. Cannery Row is where there used to be fish canneries where the boats would bring the fish in to the docks and the fish was immediately put in cans to be shipped around the country. The Canneries are all gone now, but there are lots of places that tourists like to visit such as great restaurants, shops and a John Steinbeck museum. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is at the end of Cannery Row.

When we got there, it was about time for lunch so we walked down the street trying to decide where to stop. A couple of places gave out samples of really good clam chowder to people walking by. The best clam chowder was at Louie Linguini's. The also had deep fried artichoke hearts on the menu and we were really tempted to eat there until we got to the Fish Hopper.

The view was spectacular from our table.

Even though the view was great, what convinced us to go there was an item on the menu that we could not pass up. It was Macadamia crusted Halibut served over sweet potato wedges with mango, papaya, broccoli, yellow squash, snow peas and red peppers with mango relish on it. These are two views of my lunch. Mom’s was identical because it was too good to share.

This may have been the best lunch I have ever had. After lunch, we walked down to the rocks.

We still need to go back to Louie Linguini's and try the deep fried artichoke hearts.

We eventually made it to the aquarium and decided that we want to come back here frequently so we got a membership to the aquarium. Children and grandchildren under 21 get in with us and we also have two adult guest passes that can be used by anyone and we do not even need to go with the guests, but we would probably want to. We saw a lot of cool things at the aquarium, but did not get to about 80% of it so we will need to go back again. Just before we left, we talked to a girl that works there that had a clear container that had baby moon jellyfish that you could see up close. They get up to about 16 inches in diameter as adults, but the ones we saw were two inches or smaller and were only a few weeks old. She was going back to return them to the larger tank and asked if we wanted to see it. We went with here and saw the tank with all of the baby moon jellyfish. Some of them were about a ¼ inch in size and were a couple of days old. It was pretty cool.

When anyone comes to visit and stay with is in the near future, we need to try and plan on a trip to Monterey and the aquarium. It takes a little over an hour to get there but it worth the trip.

Rocky's "New" Dog House

Brian and Annie had and old dog house that they did not need any more. They said Rocky could have it if we wanted. We brought it over this morning and put it were he could guard the lemon trees. Becky's aunt Wendy gave Rocky a sleeping pad, which he likes, so we put the pad in the dog house. A couple of hours later, he was in the dog house taking a nap. He must like it.

Grandpa's Funeral - Jan 4th

There have already been some great blog posts and tributes to Grandpa Blank, but I wanted to share some additional photos to add to what has already been shared.

The bugler played the most amazing version of "Taps" I have ever heard.
The Flag was then folded and presented to Grandma.

My final photo is of Grandma and her oldest grandson, John back at the church.
Good bye Grandpa.

Sledding in Provo - Jan 3rd

The day before Grandpa's funeral, we went sledding. I got to be photographer while others sledded. Sleds varied from fancy to simple and even sliding down without a sled. It seems that it was all fun regardless of the sled

Even excavating large chunks of snow was fun.
I noticed this sign when we were leaving. It made me laugh.

Three Days after Christmas - Back to the Beach

Since Sarah and Nate missed our beach trip before Christmas, they wanted to go the beach before they returned to Utah. The weather and tides were somewhat cooperative on Tuesday, Dec 28. Sarah, Nate, Ashley and Charlotte came on this trip to the beach along with a few of us that were delighted for another chance to go.

I did not get very many photos this time, but I did get a few that were fun.

This photo of Sarah and Nate was taken using the flash. Combined with the natural lighting, the beach made a nice backdrop.
Sand sticks to wet feet and sandals , but for some reason, it did not stick to little girl's painted toenails... to the delight of a 5 year old girl.

Another fun day at the beach and the end of Christmas festivities.

The Day after Christmas - Getting Ready for Church

The day after Christmas was Sunday. As the kids were getting dressed for church, they looked so cute in matching clothes that several photos were taken. First it was Dallin and Lucas. Then Madoc was added with all three boys in matching clothes. The the girls were then added. When photographing the children, I came to the following conclusions:

1. The longer they sit and them more photos are taken, the harder it is to get them to appear happy.

2. As the number of children in the photo increase, it becomes nearly impossible to get the "perfect" photo where they all look happy, and are looking at the camera and their hands are where we want them (not covering their faces). I believe there is an equation that has 1/number of children factorial in it.

We got a couple of pretty good photos with just two, but as children were added, the "perfect" photo was getting harder to get. As I was looking at the entire sequence of photos, I realized that I loved the entire sequence and laughed as I went through them all. So I decided to post the entire sequence so you can also laugh at the "out takes" like at the end of a movie.

I love these kids!!!!!!!!!