We recently returned from a 5-day family vacation in the Monterey, CA area. We stayed in a beautiful 1 bedroom cottage, the Quails Nest, in Carmel-By-The-Sea, just blocks away from the beach. Click on the pictures below to view the images for that day.
Day 1
We left our house around 11am and arrived at the Quails Nest around 3:30pm. After unloading the car and familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings, we took the boys for their first beach experience! The waves were perfect and we all had a blast. Plus, I got to try out my new Nikon D40 camera!
Day 2
After a horrible night sleep for the entire family, we headed off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. On our way, we decided to take a scenic tour on the 17 Mile Drive.
The aquarium was nice…they’ve added a new building and a lot of new exhibits since we (Shannon and I) were last there. It was kind of a tough day with the family being so exhausted, but all-in-all, we had a good time. The sounds of screaming parents and other kids having melt-downs helped make our situation seem more normal. To avoid another night of poor sleep, we went to bed with the kids…at 7:30pm.
Day 3
Thankfully we got a good night of sleep…and we needed it too. We spent the entire day at the Gilroy Gardens (formerly the Bonfante Gardens) with Roger (Grandpa), Gail (Grandmama), Nina, J.P. and Kain. If you have kids and are looking for a beautiful, fun place…I strongly suggest trying it out. The food is expensive and not very good (just ask J.P. and Nina), so we brought our own food and ate outside the park.
Day 4
The first part of the day was spent hiking around Point Lobos. Deemed “The Greatest Meeting of Land and Water in The World”…it certainly was beautiful. Besides having to wait around forever to get one of the few parking spots…it was one of my highlights of the trip.
At the end of the day, we took the boys to the beach again, this time to the one at the end of Ocean Ave in Carmel-By-The-Sea. The beach was very crowded and the waves were too strong for the boys. We tried to play in the water…but after one too many times of having Caden almost swept out to sea…we called it a day.
Day 5
Our last day…one last drive down Scenic Rd in Carmel-By-The-Sea before heading up to Monterey to take the boys to the Dennis the Menace Playground. At the playground, Cooper went straight to the train engine, took control as the engineer and was shouting out “Allllllllll abooooaaaard”. It was a nice ending to a great family trip…and we were back home in Rocklin by 4:30pm!
The new camera is a great success. Your pictures are all beautiful. I can identify with your exaustion, having been there many times myself.
Looks like the rest of the trip was fun. We did enjoy the Gilroy Garden’s. Would love to go back one day and do the tour of the garden’s behind the scenes. You can’t see Kain on the roller coaster as he is hanging on to me for dear life and screaming. Poor thing. He takes it all in his stride though. It was really fun for Roger and I to be included and had a great day with the grandson’s. Especially watching Caden eat up all that ice cream!!! He was so pleased with himself. Thanks for sharing. Grandmama
@Bobbie – thanks! Although it was tiring…it was a lot of fun. I spent the entire drive back trying to figure out how we could move to Carmel…if only I had a few spare millions to buy one of those homes 😉 It was 64 degrees when we left and 102 when we arrived home!
@Gail – I’m glad you guys were able to spend the day with everyone…it was fun!