In the spring, I was optimistic about the direction of the pandemic, and made plans with my best friend Tracy and her daughter to get together in central California for a couple of nights in an Airbnb. But unfortunately, the Delta variant has me worried, and with Serafina unvaccinated, we had to postpone our plans. The girls were beyond disappointed. But luckily, Tracy had a surprise trip planned for her and Maya to come up to the Monterey area. We decide to double down on the surprise and meet up in Monterey during their trip, but not tell the girls. Fortunately, we take trips to the coast at least a handful of times during the summer, so my kids weren't suspicious when we loaded up the car for a day trip. It's a little longer drive than we usually do to Santa Cruz, but take a look at this video and you'll see it was totally worth it.
The girls were shocked and so thrilled.
They played a bit at the park until it was time to go get some lunch.
Waiting for the lunch order...
We ate at a park, but I took no pictures because Mousse was being a total pain. He was pretty high maintenance the whole time, honestly.
After lunch, it was time for ice cream, of course.
Don't be fooled by Mousse's cute face in this picture. He was super annoying.
After all our treats, we headed to some beach dunes. We had to pass under Highway 1.
The beach was warm, beautiful and not crowded at all. And finally (FINALLY) Mousse was happy to run around in the sand and wasn't a total pest for the first time all day.
Leo's masterpiece.
Fun photo shoot for the girls.
We were quite proud of ourselves for pulling off such an awesome surprise.
The kids had fun playing our backyard games during my birthday party last month, so I decided to host Backyard Olympics this afternoon.
We had four events, and I made "medals" from foam and ribbon.
And of course, we had lots of snacks.
The first event was hula hooping. Here's Serafina and Sunny competing first. Each athlete got two attempts to hula hoop for the longest time. Sunny's second attempt was an impressive two minutes and 37 seconds. Leo's one and only attempt blew that away though when he managed to hoop for 6 minutes and 40 seconds. He wanted to reach 10 minutes, but he was okay with his time and first place win.
The next event was a ping pong toss. Serafina helped me create this.
They all bounced 8 balls (that's how many usable ones we currently have) to see how many points they could rack up.
The other two events were darts and cornhole (bean bag toss). I was so happy that everyone willingly participated without any eye rolling. In fact, I think they had fun. Leo was surprisingly competitive.
Here he is with his gold medal for hula hoop. Sunny took silver and Sophie got bronze.
Winners for darts.
Ping pong winners.
Cornhole champs. Sidney came late because she was hanging with her friends. We made her do all the events once she showed up, while we all watched. Just what a teenager loves! Ha! She was a good sport about it and even handled some heckling from her sister.
Leo declared himself overall champion and wore this garland that had previously been decor.
I made sure all the kids got goody bags regardless of how they did during the events. It was a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon.
Mousse very much liked another dog's ball the other day at the park, so I ordered him one of his own, except I got the wrong size. It's a bit too big, but Mousse doesn't care. He loves his new ball.
Monday afternoon we drove up to Copper Mountain in Colorado. Grandma Carrie has a lovely condo and she let us stay there. It's a beautiful place, but at 9,200 feet above sea level, Tom and I were feeling the altitude on Monday night.
Tuesday morning, we made our way down the mountain to go river rafting. It's been a while since we've rafted and there were some nerves, but I read the description several times and I knew it would be okay. It was a "family friendly" trip. It was fun, and I was a lot less nervous than prior trips because the kids are so much bigger and able to handle themselves in the rapids. Both kids had a good time. Here's a shot of us going through a rapid around the middle of the trip. Tom and Mike are in the front, Serafina and Leo are in the middle row, and Grandma Carrie and I are in the back with our guide.
Here's one last picture with Grandma Carrie after changing into dry clothes at the rafting office.
She headed home and we headed back up Copper Mountain.
Wednesday morning, Serafina and I set out to ride the Rocky Mountain Coaster. Tickets were a bit pricey and the line was long, but we were committed. Here she is waiting in line.
Ready to ride! She didn't do any braking and went down the rail at top speed. I was not as brave and slowed my cart down in spots. The track was long and very picturesque - worth the money and the wait.
Big chair photo op!
After Serafina and I had lunch in the condo, we offered to take Theo for a walk so Mike and Lynz could enjoy lunch at one of the restaurants. Lynz said Theo might fall asleep in the stroller.
Naturally, we didn't let him sleep because we kept getting him out of the stroller for cuddles and photos.
I mean...how could we resist?
Serafina photo shoot in the chair.
Not sure if she can take a normal picture.
Only after I told her to sit down.
Pretty creekside shot.
Admiring the creek.
While Serafina and I were enjoying the village and the baby, Leo was having an awesome day of mountain biking.
He loves mountain biking, but not all the hard work of getting up the mountain. The beauty of biking at the ski resort is that you get to take the chair lift to the top.
Mike went biking too.
They also used the gondola to get to the top.
Here he is coming down the mountain. He said it was even more fun than rafting. He passed on having donuts after lunch to get back out there and do more biking. That's saying something!
Both kids also got a chance to do this bungee trampoline contraption. They said it was pretty tiring.
At the end of the day, Leo and Tom took a turn on the mountain coaster. It was too fun for them not to experience it.
Serafina ended up with a headache in the evening. She tried out a cure she saw on TikTok.
Taking in the view from the condo balcony on our evening.
Thursday we made our way down the mountain to the airport. It was a bit stressful, but we got there on time. Of course, the flight ended up being delayed.
Isn't this how you pass the time waiting for your flight?
Though we had a great time spending time with family and taking in the beauty of Colorado, it was very nice to be home with our very good boy.
