Getaway

Our next-door neighbor had her 70th birthday bash this weekend, and we thought that sounded like a good time to get out of town. On Saturday morning we packed up the kids and headed down to beautiful Gilroy to visit Gilroy Gardens, an amusement park very much targeting the post-toddler set.

Elizabeth and Miranda got to ride their first amusement car rides, which was pretty sweet. I wasn't sure how Miranda was going to take to it, but she went along very dainty and prim. Elizabeth, of course, couldn't get enough of it.



They had a couple of big water area, and Parker took the opportunity to get pretty wet.



Miranda took the opportunity to get a little grumpy, although it was short-lived.



The girls cooled off overlooking the swan and duck paddle boats below (not shown), and the chair ride across the lake.



We all went on the hot air balloons, but had to ride separately because of their strict four-passenger rule. (Luckily, their safety rules are enforced less strictly elsewhere, and Parker was able to ride two roller coasters he was an inch and a half too short for.)



We also got to ride a train, play in a nice playground, and have ice cream cones. Plus Parker honest to god threw a basketball in a hoop, and won plush prizes for himself and the girls. The rest of the day Miranda wouldn't let her little yellow bear go if her life depended on it, which it luckily never did.

On closing our most excellent visit to Gilroy Gardens, we headed southwest to Monterey, and yes, we knew the way. Rachel lined up a really perfect two-room suite in a funky and not quite shabby roadside motel. The kids exhausted themselves running from one end to the other, chasing and laughing. Parker and Elizabeth were very cute, giggling and falling to the ground in eachothers arms. We had chinese food delivered and ate it on the cooler, and the kids all crashed, exhausted, around 8:00pm.

This morning we headed to the famed Monterey Bay Aquarium, to gawk at the fish. We'd hoped that the kids might be old enough to dig the exhibits, but most of it was lost on them. They all did get to see some sea otters worrying after something right in front of them, which was cool, and which they enjoyed. But they seemed more interested in the bird that came to visit when we had a snack on the patio.



They do have a nice hands-on section there, and the kids managed to enjoy themselves without getting too wet.





Miranda managed to get grumpy again for a brief period, which again didn't last.



I made the kids sit up on the big plastic clam-shell in vain pursuit of the perfect picture of all three at once, only to be foiled once again. In this case, all three of them look completely phony, like some crazy alternate universe version of my kids - the one where Parker is kind of slow, and Elizabeth isn't mischievous, and Miranda, well, actually this is a pretty good picture of Miranda.



Shortly, we headed home, for a noisy afternoon in our own house for a change.