Ethan turns 6

With moving next week, James’ testing last week and this week, appointments, paperwork, appointments, and more appointments going on we decided to try to simplify things this year for Ethan’s birthday.  We thought it would be fun to take Ethan and a friend whale watching instead of throwing a big birthday party.  We asked him which one he would prefer and luckily he was all for the whale watching trip.  He loves sea animals and watches the nature videos religiously, so we were excited for him to see these amazing creatures in person and in their natural habitat. I have to say I was pretty excited myself to experience this.  I read up on these trips on the internet and read a bunch of reviews about them.  Most of them raved about how wonderful it was, but there was also a lot of comments about all of the people who got sea sick on the boats.  I decided to be extra careful and prepared and took a motion sickness pill before, even though I’ve never been sick from being on a boat.

We were a little early so we were one of the first ones.  Here we are enjoying ourselves before we set off on our adventure.

      

Unfortunately I didn’t get many good pictures.  We saw two humpback whales.  A mom and her baby.  They didn’t do a whole lot.  We saw their tails come out of the water a couple of times and their mouths from feeding.  It was still amazing to see them though.

   

Due to my taking pictures, I lost my equilibrium and started feeling sick about half way through the trip.  So the second half I spent at the back of the boat ready to lose it over the side if need be.  I definitely wasn’t alone back there.  There were people getting sick all around me.  Unfortunately as we started to head back I couldn’t hold it anymore and lost my breakfast to the sea.  Ethan had a great time, though.  It didn’t affect him at all and he wants to go again sometime.  I’m not sure I will be on that trip if he does.

 

Here are some more pictures I took of him opening his presents and blowing out his candles.  Probably a bit more than you need to see, but it gives you a play by play :)

  

He was very excited about his guitar we got him and wanted me to take this video of him.  It’s kind of funny though, at the end he was definitely done.

 

Here’s the cake I made.  It looks a little weird because I decided to try being creative.  The border on the bottom is ethan over and over, in case you couldn’t tell ;)

I can’t believe he is already 6.  He is definitely a special young man who is learning and growing so much lately.  We are so lucky to have him in our family.

Fun day with friends

Last week we had dinner with one of James’  best friends, Josh, and his family.  They have three boys, one of which is just a year older than Ethan.  They got along so well that we wanted to get together again before we head off in under two weeks.  We wish we had done this months ago so they could have had more time together.  They seem to be two peas in a pod kind of like James and Josh are.  So yesterday we went for a little hike down to a beach in Garrapata.

The boys liked climbing up the side of the rock cliffs and jumping off.

 

Serious Ethan…I wish I knew what goes on inside that head.  It is always busy thinking.

    

They are definitely two of a kind. Stephanie (Josh’s wife) and I had to laugh and take pictures of these two just hanging out on the side of the cliff having a deep philosophical conversation.

It definitely was another beautiful, fun day in Monterey, California.

Only 2 and a half More

We only have 2 weeks and 4 days left before we leave beautiful Monterey and head to Texas.  Where did all of our time go?  It has gone way too quickly.  We are trying to enjoy this one of a kind place, with what little time we have left here, as much as possible.

Last week I noticed this very large congregation of California Sea Lions by Fisherman’s Wharf.  So on Saturday we decided to go check them out and take some pictures.  There were well over a hundred of them there.  They were incredible to watch…a bit stinky, but I could’ve watched them all day.  After that we headed over to the aquarium and had a great afternoon.  Here are some of the pictures we took.

The sea lions blend in really well with the rocks, but if you look closely you can see them wrapped all the way around the water on the rocks.  There are some in the water too.

   

At the end of this video you will notice James and some other guys checking out a lone sea lion making sure it wasn’t sick or hurt, while Ethan and I were watching the group.

 

This was our third time to the aquarium since we’ve been here and we finally discovered that they had sea turtles.  I was so excited, I didn’t think they had any.  They were the cutest things, next to the feeding sea otters and  penguins that we saw, of course.

 

I know that was a lot of pictures of the sea turtles, but as I said, I was excited we happened upon them.

This penguin was not very cooperative…he hid his head just as i took his picture.

  

These last pictures are from the balcony of the aquarium.  It was such a beautiful day, cold, but beautiful.

       

We are struggling with getting Ethan to just stand still and smile while we take his picture, but we are hopeful it is just a phase.  He is a cutie nonetheless.