Our first theme park in the books!

We headed to the Maritime Aquarium and Meryl, Holmes, Sam, and Coco had the run of the place. Context shift from on the east coast, one of the staff was jazzed about the Giant Pacific Octopus when I asked about her favorite exhibit:)

After our bat ray introduction at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we’re obsessed with all the rays!

Feeding and training time for the seals! They ranged in age from 35-years old(!) to two-months old and Sono, the pup, was so cute.

Loggerhead sea turtles are huge!

The aquarium had a cool digital exhibit that allowed you to color a fish and name it, and then watch it get introduced into the wild! The kids introduced a kaleidoscope of new species:)

Holmes and Sam (also 4-years old) have been thick as thieves from the moment we arrived. Our friends, Ben and Tyler, live across the street from Weir Farm National Historic Park where American Impressionist artists found their roots. It is one of two National Historic Parks devoted to visual art, and it’s where we learned all about how to avoid ticks (stay on the path!).

We searched for all the painted bears in the park to earn our Junior Park Rangers badges!

Meryl searched out the names of various flower species using a new feature on iPhones that provides flower names a part of the backend image information of a picture. It’s pretty cool!

Rounding up the rear and making shade in the sun:)

Fun times with Sasha! Our friends live close and it was fun to meet up locally! Turns out, the same firefighter who captivated cousin David in his youth is still firefighting and is still captivating to our youth!

I take a lot of pictures, I can’t help it.