We were so excited to get to go on a much needed vacation. My cousin was having her bridal shower in Santa Maria so we thought that would be a great time to start to our vacation. So on Saturday Makenna and I spent the day at a bridal shower tea party for my cousin. We wore our tea hats, that is until Makenna decided that not only did she not want to wear her hat but also didn’t want my sisters, mom, and I to wear ours either. So the hat idea was short lived but we had a wonderful time. One of the other little girls at the bridal shower was so cute and took Makenna under her wing. Makenna wouldn’t hold my hand but gladly offered it to the little girl to help her around the house. It was so cute!
We had a fun time seeing my cousins, aunt, and uncle and getting to spend a little time with them.
Our next stop was Pismo Beach. We of course went out to the beach where it was pretty cold and dreary but it was Makenna’s first experience with the beach and it was hilarious.
She didn’t like the sand to get on her feet so she walked on her tippy-toes until she couldn’t stand it anymore and made us wipe off her feet and carry her the rest of the time.
We then decided to head to our hotel which was wonderful because it had a separate room so we could watch television and look up directions for the next day while Makenna got much needed sleep without being disturbed.
On Monday we continued up the coast where we stopped at San Luis Obispo. We first picked up a pail and shovel so that we were prepared for our next beach stop and then headed into the downtown area. We went to the Mission San Luis Obispo which was just ok. It wasn’t as large as some of the others that we had been to before but it did have a small garden area where Makenna enjoyed being out of the stroller and running around.
After that we walked a few streets away to the San Luis Obispo Children’s Museum. We had a fantastic time…and so did Makenna:-) The third floor of the museum had a toddler area where they had tunnels that she could crawl through,
a small reading area with appropriately sized seating,
a train table, and a xylophone (Where Toby learned to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”). After it was about lunch time for most people, and the museum was cleared out, we went down to the second floor where they had a pretend city area with a diner, fire truck, doctor’s office, stage, and Makenna’s favorite: the grocery store. She had a great time putting fruit and vegetables into her shopping basket and pushing it all around.
Then she enjoyed going to the diner and sweeping.
She didn’t really understand the whole serving others thing but she did like to sweep the floor; that will come in handy back at home:-) The first floor had a water table, dinosaur dig area, bubble machine, and outdoor play area. We didn’t spend too much time on this floor as it was a little too advanced for Makenna. I have decided that I am going to be looking up where places like this are around us because we had such a wonderful time. To make the drive seem shorter we headed next to The Museum of Natural History in Morro Bay. It was wonderful because we were pretty much the only ones there. It allowed us to not have to watch Makenna as carefully and let her explore. Throughout the museum they have this rock that tells you the history of things and Makenna loved this because you pick the rock up like a phone and listen.
She stood and listened to almost all of them and actually waited for them to stop talking before she would put the receiver down (amazing!!). Her favorite part of the museum though was this little plastic chair that was meant for being an audience member at the puppet show.
But since nobody was there anyway she got to push the chair all over to her satisfaction. She also thought that the puppets were pretty funny.
It was a small museum but the perfect break that we needed before hopping back in the car. We headed up to our hotel in Cambria were we enjoyed walking across the street from our hotel onto the beach and Makenna got to try out her new pail and shovel.
It was a success, even though the Moonstone beach that we went to was mostly rocks, that didn’t deter Makenna.
Tuesday we headed up to San Simeon to see Hearst’s Castle. I had been here as a child and remembered how beautiful it was and it didn’t disappoint this time either. It was a bit difficult though because they expected that you would be quiet and listen to the tour and that just won’t happen with a 1 ½ year old in the group. They are also very particular about where you stand and how far away from the group you are allowed to wander; so I didn’t feel like I could really move too far away from the group with Makenna. A few times the tour guide’s assistant came up to me and said, “Let’s take her to look at the flowers over here”…hehe. Makenna actually did really well considering that she wasn’t allowed to eat, drink, get out of mommy’s arms, or be too loud. That is a tall order for an 18-month old. On the tram ride back down the hill Makenna fell asleep which was good because the highway 1 that we needed to go on to get to our next destination was closed and so we had to take the long way all the way around to the 101. After the llloooonnnnggg drive we finally made it to Monterey and decided that we need to get out to the beach and run off some energy before bedtime. Makenna this time would not even touch the sand with her feet and would stick out her feet in front of her and fuss if we tried to set her on the sand.
She did however enjoy sitting on the blanket with daddy and shovel sand into her pail.
Wednesday we spent mostly at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They have so many wonderful exhibits there. Makenna got to touch some of the sea plants and animals at the touch tank,
made crayon rubbings of ocean animals, and ran around through all of the other exhibits.
We saw the jelly fish,
the sea horses,
and lots of other stuff:-)
Makenna was getting sleepy by that time and we only had one section left so we went out of the aquarium to try to find something to eat and give Makenna her lunch. Makenna ate her lunch and then fell asleep so we decided just to go back into the aquarium and finish the last section while Makenna slept in her stroller. Unfortunately that plan didn’t work out too well because the section that we had left for last was this absolutely wonderful kid’s area. Being the great parent’s that we are, we decided that we would wake up our sleeping toddler (I think there are parenting books that say that you should never do that…oh well:-) and endure her wrath for a bit just so she could have fun playing in her element. After about 5-minutes of wondering whether we did the right thing by waking her up she found the slide and was in heaven.
They had an area to dress up like a sea animal so Makenna dressed up like a clown fish.
Then we went into the toddler area where Makenna loved playing with the fish and water spouts at the water table.
She would have played at the water table for hours if we hadn’t pulled her away. I guess we need to look into getting a water table for her to play with when we get home too. We finished up our day by going to the Dennis the Menace Park. Makenna was still a little too young for most of the exciting features of the park but they did have an area that had play equipment for her sized people and at the very end we of course had to take a walk onto the train.
On Thursday we went to the Monterey State Historic Park but it was so cold and we ended up there early before any of the places for the day had opened. We walked around as much as we could and it allowed Makenna to run off some of her energy and for Toby and I to get some good ideas for our backyard plants.
Then we headed down to Point Lobos State Park because we had missed that when we found out that highway 1 was closed, so we decided to do that next before another drive. Well we had hoped that it would be someplace that Makenna could walk with us on the trails but unfortunately poison oak was rampant and so Makenna had to be held while we hiked.
So hiking didn’t last too long: 1. Because Makenna was getting tired, 2. Because our arms were getting tired of Makenna, and 3. Because again it was cold. We did two hikes which were beautiful and allowed us to get the idea of the area and then we hit the road to Union City to visit Jeff, Rebecca, Jeffrey, and Pierce (Jeff is Toby’s oldest brother). We got to go out and spend some time with Pierce playing at the local park by their house. Makenna had a great time playing at the train table that they got out especially for her.
On Friday we all hopped into the cars and headed up to the Oakland Zoo. The zoo was fun but the part that Makenna liked the best was the otter exhibit. One would think that she would enjoy watching the cute little otters swimming under the water, floating on top, and eating their food, but no…she liked the exhibit because it had water and had a little step up to the glass that she could stand on. It was so funny because every time the otter would come by she would be oblivious to it or turned the other way.
There was also a little area where kids could climb on all kinds of bugs so Makenna took a liking to climbing on the spider web.
She couldn’t really do it herself yet but she wanted to try to be like one of the big kids that she saw climbing. We got to see lemurs, monkeys, chimps, orangutans, giraffes, frogs, snakes, bears,
warthogs, hmm…I am sure that I am missing some but you get the idea; we saw a lot of animals:-) We had an awesome time!
Then it was time to say our good-byes and wait for Makenna to get sleepy enough to make the long 7 hour drive home while she slept. So we arrived home around 1:00am glad to be in our own beds, but sad that our vacation was over.
