Exploring Santa Cruz

We had the best time exploring a bit of what Santa Cruz had to offer last weekend! Its about an hour north of us so we drove up and checked out Natural bridges State Park, had an amazing lunch at Mission St. BBQ, stopped to see what The Mystery Spot was all about and then hit Glaum Egg Ranch on our way home!

Natural Bridges State Park was just a scenic place to walk along the sand and stick our toes in the ocean. There use to be three of the natural bridges like shown but one collapsed/eroded and the other fell during the '89 earthquake. The boys enjoyed climbing up the rocky sided cliffs and playing in the trees.

We stopped by Mission St BBQ for some lunch and it was delicious. I am partial to tomato based BBQ sauces and they used vinegar but the pork was delicious and the boys had amazing looking plump hotdogs. The best park for me was their oil cloth decor and chunky potato salad. Wasn't quite like home but was a dang good reminder!

The Mystery Spot is a fun tourist trap in Santa Cruz where somehow, someway the "natural" gravitation pull is altered so that everything is leaning when you feel like you are straight. The boys thought it was the coolest thing ever and the guide did lots of tricks to wow them. I had a baby strapped to my back and honestly the leaning/dizzy feeling was compounded with the extra weight so  I was happy when the tour ended but I'm glad we saw what the fuss was all about. 

Our final stop was the Glaum Egg Ranch in Aptos on the way home. Its this cute organic egg ranch where the late grandfather was a tinkerer/inventor and had created an egg vending machine. Sure enough, you slide your dollar bills in like a regular vending machine and the slot opens and out comes a tray with 19eggs on it. Feeding your money in also causes the curtain on the adjoining Chicken Show to open and for them to start dancing and clucking away for their 2 minute show. Apparently their costumes and decor get changed for every season so we saw them in their Easter-finest, while this youtube video of the experience shows them at Thanksgiving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkCQ1Rto_UQ

It was just a fun "things you don't do everyday" Saturday for sure

Friday Funday: Birthday Style

Our last Friday Family Funday coincided with my birthday so we loaded up and checked out the aquariums for an hour or so before heading over to Sapporo for some habachi. Most habachi restaurants we've been to have in strip malls and rather dark inside; this was the exact opposite. Sapporo is right on the municipal wharf dock and inside the restaurant were floor to ceiling windows overlooking the marina and the bay- it was beautiful! The habachi presentation was rather typical, but the obviously fresh shrimp, salmon and fish fillets (for the oldest picky eater man cub) were a welcomed surprise. They also pulled out all of the noisy stops for a post meal drumming rendition of the birthday song and presented me with the most beautiful, and equally delicious fresh fruit "fish". The wait staff took an instant picture of us and wouldn't you know that they captured a dang good family portrait! It was certainly a birthday meal to remember and we will certainly be visiting Sapporo again- it exceeded our expectations!

Camden meet Carmel; Carmel meet Camden

Last weekend we had the BEST time exploring Carmel Beach- Carmel is one of the few around where the beach is owned by the city, and not a state park, so they have their own rules. Dogs are allowed off leash and bonfire are allowed at night! It was like a huge tropical paradise dog park. We have never really taken Camden some place where she had free reign and little miss did SO well! She would run up and check out other dogs or others groups as they walked by, but she knew where her pack was and would quickly trot back to make sure all was well. Besides our rookie mistake of bringing the same yellowish green tennis ball that every other dog on the beach had- we did pretty well with getting the lay of the sand.