Doug surprised us this weekend with a last minute trip to Monterey. Every time we visit the area, we leave asking ourselves the question: "Why don't we live here?" We both really love Monterey and Carmel. I wish we were closer so we could stop by more often. When Doug asked if I was interested in heading out that way, I immediately started thinking about the pictures I wanted to take. We were up bright and early Saturday morning and I had a photo plan. We drove to Carmel and I started taking pictures of some of the cottages there. In the back of my head, I have this idea for a "fairytale" photo book that I want to do with the kids. I envision Lauren and Jacob dressed as "Hansel and Gretel" standing in front of a little cottage peering in through a window. I wanted to see if I could find the cottage I see in my head in Carmel in real life. I had only taken a handful of pictures, literally 5 minutes worth of photos before the complaining began.
A: "Mommy, this is not fun. You said we were going to have fun."
L: "I want to see the parade. Where's the parade?"
A: "We drove all this way and we're not doing anything I want to do. This isn't fun."
L: "Where's the paraaaaaaade?" (I have no idea where she got the idea there was going to be a parade.)
A: SIGH....(followed by the quivering lip.)
L: SIGH. I want to see the stupid parade.
Me: "Okay, enough. I give up. Let's go to the park."
Girls: "Hurray! We're going to the park!!!"
So, we left and drove the 3 minutes to the park. This is what I turned around to find once we arrived.
We waited for a few minutes. They didn't wake up so we turned around and drove back to Carmel. I took about another 5 minutes worth of photos and they woke up again. I didn't get a chance to find the perfect cottage but I had several others mapped out that I didn't get to see. Here are a few pictures of some of the places we did find:
We headed out to the park where the girls finally got to "do what they wanted to do". After a nice lunch down on the water, we took everyone to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was a HUGE hit with the whole family.
