My long lost friend has returned

My friend Aloe returned on Saturday!! Yes, I got my first sunburn of the year. This is the start of a great year of color (I hope).

It was in the 70s and perfect that day so we decided to head to the beach to catch some rays. I did not feel like joining everyone else on the beach, so we thought it would be fun to try to find our secluded beach with the waterfall. That way we could have an enjoyable afternoon without all of the crowds. Unfortunately we were not able to find that exact location, but decided to make the best of what we found. It turned out to be a beautiful day, even though I had to lay out on rocks instead of a sandy beach.

No adventure is complete for us without having to climb down the side of a cliff :)

These are the rocks we hiked around on and I eventually tried laying out on. It wasn't the most comfortable, but the scenery made it worth it.

Here is Ethan in a cave we found. He really enjoys posing for pictures.

Here is James, my other cutie, who doesn't like posing for pictures.

We found another cave that was filled with water. As you can see here, this is the opening of it where the water goes in.

This is what it looked like on the inside of the cave. It was so cold in there, we could see our breath.

One of Ethan's favorite things to do is snap. He is aaalways snapping. We call him 'snaps'. I think he always has a song in his head because he dances a lot, too, without any music. He is very intently watching James climb down into the cave.

I debated whether or not to put any pictures of me since I'm in my swimsuit and that is so unflattering. But I thought it would be a good idea to document how white I was then, before the sun and Aloe returned.

Here I am quicly hopping from rock to rock with my feet hurting trying to get to the cave.

I made it, but please cover your eyes if my whiteness is blinding you.

The Pelican Whisperer

A little while ago we went to the beach where the Carmel River runs into the bay. Ethan calls this beach the 'kiddie pool beach' because there's a place where you can wade in the river water. It is a really beautiful place where you can see the power of the ocean and the power of the river come together along with all of the wildlife that congregates there. Across the river we found a flock of pelicans. There were probably 40-50 of them. Neither one of us had ever seen that many pelicans together in one spot. It was really amazing to see.



This is Ethan's favorite part. Wading in the water. It is freezing, but he loves it.

You can see the river on the left flowing into the bay.

As you can see, we not only enjoy the beauty, we have a little fun. I don't remember which happened first. Ethan wanting to be buried or James wanting to bury Ethan, but they were enjoying themselves.

Here are our pelicans. They were amazing to watch. James thought it would be fun to see how close he could get to them. You could tell they were nervous and were watching us.

Jack's Peak

We had another beautiful Saturday with no rain, so we made it to Jack's Peak. We really are in a great location because we have the beach only a ten minute walk away and this mountainous terrain only a ten minute drive away.

There are several different trails all around the park. The first one we went on was the skyline trail and it took us along the edge where we could look out and see the bay. It was quite a sight.

There were a few logs that were down and James couldn't resist walking out on them. It is hard to tell in this picture, but he is way out over the edge. It definitely made me nervous, but I'm sure the view was incredible from there.

We even spotted this red mushroom of unusual size. I've never seen anything like it before.

Here is where we somehow lost the trail, but our trusty guide eventually brought us back to the marked path.

Don't worry, this tree was not over a cliff, or there would be no way Ethan would be out there.