Today we took our one big outing of Spring Break. With all the sunshine, baby animals and blooming flowers we saw today, it couldn't have been a more seasonally appropriate day off. We started the morning at a favorite oceanside park-- the massive Dennis the Menace park in Monterey. I think all the natural smiles I captured from Delia show what a great hour and half of pure play this was for the girls.
Then we pulled over here to eat our picnic lunch. Isn't it lovely? It smelled nice too!
The park, the views, the flowers, the ocean waves crashing...all this is nice and what always makes a trip to the coast a treat, but what was INCREDIBLE today was to be there during seal pupping season! Each cove (and there is one around every bend of the twisty coastal road) was refuge to whole communities of pregnant or birthing mamas and their pups. We just couldn't get enough of watching the baby seals nursing, getting swimming lessons, flopping around and annoying the other moms or crying out their little bark when their moms were swimming without them. Some helpful docents were wandering around answering our questions and pointing out which fuzzy pups were mere hours old.
The main destination today was our favorite coastal hike, Pt. Lobos in breathtaking Carmel. The last time we went, Delia was just a baby and Ella still rode in the backpack. It was fun to have bigger girls to hike with today. They took great delight in finding lizards on the path and hermit crabs in the tide pools.
With older kids we were also able to venture down the long flight of stairs to the beach for a game of tag with the lapping waves.
The girls also made friends with this random seal lying right in the middle of our beach! He kept tossing sand on himself, so Ella and Delia had to imitate him, of course.
We saw so many cool things today; God is a good creator. We had much to thank him for in our bedtime prayers tonight!
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