Great America with the Aldanas

We squeezed in our last bit of summer fun today by going to Great America amusement park with the Aldanas.  We've known them for a loooong time.  Jenn and I have been friends since our first kids were tiny.  They have season passes for Great America and today there was special pricing for guests of pass holders, so we took advantaged and headed there after lunch.  

Here's all the kids loaded into Jenn's new minivan which we have nicknamed "the hearse for her youth".  

 I warned the kids that I was going to make them pose for pictures.  Here's the first one right as we got to the park.

 Leo and Sophia wanted to ride the Patriot as soon as we got there.  It was Leo's first "upside down" ride.  He loved it.

 Here's proof that these two have known each other for a long time.

Another photo op, kids!

 Serafina has been going through a scaredy-cat phase recently.  She's petrified of bugs and she was afraid of the rides today.  She did much better last year at Disneyland.  We talked her into going on the log ride, but she wasn't aware how big a drop she was going to experience.

Here's Elisa, Jenn, Sophia and Leo in a log.  

 Jenn's selfie.

I was with Katie and Serafina. 

Here's our selfie. 

 When we got to the top of the ride, right before the big drop, Serafina started screaming at me "why did you make me do this mom?".  When she got off the ride, she said "that was fun."  See, that's why I made you do it, kid.

Leo got absolutely soaked.

 After some fun in the water and wave pool, it was time for dry clothes and another big roller coaster.  This time I joined them.  Here's Sophia and Leo at the Grizzly.

Serafina rode the swings and the carousel with the younger Aldana girls.  

 We met up for some Dippin Dots.  I think they are pretty gross but the kids loved them.

 Leo, Sophia and I rode a coaster called the Demon.  It was a double looper with big corkscrew.  I felt pretty wobbly after but they wanted one last ride on the Patriot again.  I made the mistake of trying to be the "cool mom" and went with them.  It put me over the edge and I was nauseous for hours after.  All the while, Serafina had a blast and won a prize at the carnival game.  

 We had fun and I'm glad we went with experienced visitors.  I learned an important lesson about how my equilibrium isn't what it used to be.  Even though I had a rough time at the end, it was a great way to end the summer.  Tomorrow is my first PTA meeting of the year and Wednesday is the first day of school.

Leo tries VR

Our friends, The Smiths, hosted us for dinner.  Jeremy works for Sony PlayStation and has a pretty sweet Virtual Reality system.  Leo got to try it out tonight.

He was pretty impressed.

Day trip to Point Lobos

 With summer break wrapping up next week, Tom was inspired to take a day trip with the kids.  He took Friday off and we headed south to Point Lobos State Natural Reserve.  We've been there a couple times before but it's been a while.

We started out by exploring some tide pools.

 I loved the color of the rocks.

 Then we headed out on the shoreline path.

 It was pretty gorgeous.

 We found some harbor seals and sea lions.

 As we continued to walk, the kids started to object.  Tom was happy though.

 And setting a bad example.

 But then it all fell apart and we had two crying, miserable kids.  Tom continued on the trail while I stayed with the pouters.  It would be easy to post all the happy pictures and pretend everything is rainbows and unicorns, but this is the reality.

Here's a Tom selfie from further down the trail.  

 And then the pendulum swung the other way and they were ready to walk again.

 And take in the scenery.

 Then we found these creepy trees and I told them to look creeped out.

 Tom looking thoughtful and introspective while staring at the ocean.

 On our way back, we came across this guy on the trail with a giant lens on his camera.  It was trained on an otter that was doing a whole lotta nothing but floating around in the kelp.  The lens was pretty impressive though.

 Back to explore the tide pools.

 We drove to the southern most tip of the reserve to see bird rock.

 After lots of exploring and plenty of bad attitude in Point Lobos, we went to the beach in Carmel.

 It was freezing.  Even the sand under our feet was cold.

 Did my kids care?  Nope, they changed into bathing suits, ran around and splashed in the waves.

 They didn't get much more than their feet wet, but I was huddled under a towel because it was so chilly.

 They had a ton of fun and didn't even feel the cold.

 We made our way further north for dinner to Capitola.  The location was great; the meal was not.  We won't talk about the meal and instead look at my crew having a post dinner stroll in the sand.

 You know what makes up for a sub-par meal?  Ice cream from Marianne's for dessert.  Yes, our second visit in one week.

 It's truly fabulous ice cream.

 Ice cream toast.

 We came home tired from our long day full of ups and downs.  But that's life for you - full of ups and downs and generally pretty exhausting.