Mom's Birthday Trip to Carmel

As a HUGE thank you for my mom watching our kids while we were in Hawaii and to also celebrate my mom's upcoming birthday I invited her on an overnight trip to Carmel. Despite her multiple trips to Monterey, she always seemed to miss Carmel. Since I couldn't leave Kurt behind and he couldn't go to work he decided to crash the party and come along.

We decided to take the scenic route to Carmel and drive through Scotts Valley. We recently have been in contact with a Realtor from there and decided to show mom where we will most likely be moving sometime in the next year.

After lunch we took Highway 1 through Santa Cruz and down the coast. We checked into our room at the Deer Haven Inn in Pacific Grove and then decided we'd take the 17-Mile Drive through Pebble Beach.

At one of our stops Kurt found some awesome shells and Logan spotted a seal super close to us.

At one of our next stops we saw some birds, more really cool shells, star fish, etc.

Kelsie really wanted to run towards the ocean. However, she stayed high and dry up on our shoulders instead.

Further down the road we stopped at the "Lone Cypress Tree" which is pretty famous (the official symbol of Pebble Beach and a frequent fixture of television broadcasts from this area).

For dinner we ate at place called "Peppers" in Pacific Grove. The food was delicious, but I was bummed we didn't see someone famous. One reviewer on yelp said that Clint Eastwood frequents the place. Logan helped Kurt eat his seafood plate and loved it. In the pictures below Logan is showing us the shells from dinner. Even though mom's birthday isn't until the end of March, we had them bring her some icecream with a candle in it. This will be the only time we'll be celebrating with her!

Tuesday morning we woke up to the sound of pouring rain, so after eating our breakfast we started the day out driving around. We first started out by driving by the Carmel Mission and then driving out to Carmel Valley. We found this very windy road that looked promising (Robinson Valley Rd, I think). We saw several deer and beautiful trees/landscapes. When Kurt is done editing his pictures I'm sure they will be posted on his photo blog. Now for the fun part, Did I mention the WINDY road? Just as we were arriving back in Carmel, Logan starts puking everywhere. To make matters worse, Logan ate a HUGE breakfast that morning and was downing water. :( Well, we pulled over and my mom (mainly) and Kurt cleaned up the car the best they could and we changed Logan's clothes. I walked into a hotel across the street and asked if they had a laundry; they didn't but the nice man told me there was a laundry mat 3-4 blocks down the road. Since it was Kurt's idea to drive down the WINDY road and he wasn't really invited on the trip in the first place :), we left him at the laundry mat to was Logan's clothes and car seat while the rest of us walked around the picturesque little shops. The timing was perfect the clouds started to clear a little and bit of sun were peaking through.

After everything was smelling fresh again we picked up Kurt and headed back to Carmel Beach. Carmel Beach is out FAVORITE beach. It has beautiful white sand that is perfect for sand castles, has tide pools on one side, and is just all around beautiful. (One of the Pebble Beach golf courses back up to it.)

Since its still technically winter the waves were HUGE. Not as big as they were in Hawaii, but still pretty big.
Overall, we had a GREAT little getaway. After dinner we hurried home so we could have a little chat on Skype with this guy:
That's right ladies....Elder Nick Keyser is officially back on the market! It's crazy how fast 2 years flies by. Nick will be speaking in our ward (in CA) on Sunday, March 14th @ 12:30pm.