River Ramblings: Trip to California

Almost a month ago now, Meadow and I headed to California to see two of my good friends from college at SUNY Cortland. Lesley now lives in Salinas, CA and my friend Tricia lives in Raliegh, NC. We try to get together as much as we can despite living so far away. We had gotten together in December for my friend Jen's wedding but unfortunately we didn't get a chance to see our kids. Tricia and her husband and son had planned a trip out to see San Fransisco and to see Lesley, so I decided to make the short flight down to see them. Lesley has a four bedroom house which is nice and spacious to accomodate us all. We packed a lot in our five day trip. We went on a nice local hike, went to the neighborhood playground, headed to Monterey for a couple of the days and hung out on the boardwalk, went to Dennis the Menace park, and visited the aquarium. One of the days we went to Santa Cruz and went on a nice train ride to the redwoods and hung out on the beach. It was a fun trip and was also nice to be able to see Hunter who is three and a half. I hadn't seen him since he was about six months old.

At the harbor in Monterey. Meadow is sporting her harness/ teddy bear packpack which I have to put on her sometimes. She is just a very fast little toddler, so it is much safer to have her wear this, especially when I am pregnant and am not quite as agile. She actually loves wearing it because she gets to wear a backpack just like the bigger kids and her parents.

Going down the bumpy slide with Les and Joe. This park was really fun. I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Monterey with kids.