.: Summer Vacation....Part 2!

Morro Bay

We decided to spend a day exploring Morro Bay. This is the next town over from Cayucos and we can see Morro Rock easily from our beach house. Kim had come her as a kid and wanted to share some of her favorite places with us.

The "Embarcadero" is a strip of shops and restaurants along the bay. We walked along and window shopped. Our first stop was Morro Bay Aquarium. This is a teeny-tiny aquarium that has been here forever! We paid a few dollars and entered the 2-room aquarium. The first room is actually a large concrete holding area with 4 seals. These are rehabilitated animals that couldn't be released into the wild. They bark and bark really loud to get you to toss a few fish at them! It was actually really loud! One of the seals was so obnoxious- Ryan kept throwing him fish just to keep him quiet!

This is the 2nd room. It is very dark and musty with several tanks of various fish.

Ryan checking out some eels

Our next stop was The Shell Shop. Kim told us all about this place. It was really amazing! They had tons and tons of neat shells and other sea-life. We all picked out a few souvenirs.

We stopped for our picnic lunch and enjoyed the view of the bay.

We had seen these Trolleys going up and down the strip. Ryan really wanted to ride, so we hopped on and had an impromptu tour of Morro Bay! It was actually really cool! The trolley took us out to Morro Rock and we learned some history about the rock and the power plant. It was very interesting.

William had really wanted to do some kayaking this trip, and we decided that we all wanted to try it out. Logan especially had wanted to do this! We found a very inexpensive place to rent Kayaks and we headed out for an hour.

Bill & Kim & Kinley rode in one, Chris took Ethan and Ryan, and Logan and I had our "alone time" together. He actually was a big help with rowing. We headed out into the bay. We saw a dock full of sea lions and seals basking in the sun. We saw about 50 jelly fish in the water! We paddled out to a little island strip and docked. We walked around for a bit and then headed back in. I absolutely fell in love with Kayaking! It was amazing to be down on top of the water but completely dry. You can go slow and enjoy sights that you would miss in a bigger boat or swimming in the water. It was just so cool! I would love to go again sometime!

(I will add more pics when I get them from Kim- was afraid I would drop my camera or get it wet!)

For dinner we headed over to this place called Harbor Hut and had a nice meal looking out over the bay.

Bummin' Beach Days

This is another castle the boys built with Chris!

We spent the day in and out. Logan and I boogie boarded and body surfed. He spent hours out in the water jumping up and down and enjoying himself! He was so happy in the water!

Ryan and I took a walk and he picked up a seashell that happened to have a ladybug on it. He carefully carried it all the way back to our house and released it into the flowers. So cute!

We just spent the day hanging out! Beach, games, books, lounging, playing, relaxing. Peace.

Kim feeling a bit of morning-sickness.

William grilling with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop!

Dead Seal Beach

We headed out mid morning to one of our favorite finds from last year....Montana de Oro State Park (AKA Dead Seal Beach). I love driving through tree enclosed roads! It is so beautiful there!

We hiked it down to this cove.

Last year we had the beach completely to ourselves. This year we had a few other groups of people come through. Not quite as secluded. It also seemed like the shells were very picked over. I didn't find nearly as many cool shells as I did last year.

We were there at low tide so everyone could scale the wall and head into the tide pools. I stayed behind with Kinley while the rest ventured out.

Kinley, puppy, and I made a new friend named "Mine". : )

They found some cool stuff!

We ate a picnic lunch and stayed a few hours then headed back to the beach house. We had a delicious dinner of Chicken Alfredo and then decided to go out for dessert. We were going to go to this ice cream place that Kim & Jay Edelson had told us about, but it ended up being a 45 minute drive. We decided to go to this neat bakery in Cambria instead.

It was called Linn's restaurant. The family owns a farm and a few stores to sell their products. It was a cute place to eat!

Here is where Ryan lost his first tooth!

Yummy!

Our Last Day

Ryan has been telling me all week that he wants to eat crab legs. I decided to take him to Morro Bay to eat some crab legs for lunch. We headed down the strip and stopped in EVERY SINGLE RESTAURANT. And not one served crab legs! I couldn't believe it! We ended up buying a crab at the fish market and took it back to the house to warm it up and eat it!