Thanksgiving and the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Ryan and I have been wanting to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with my parents ever since we moved to California 4 months ago, and this last week we finally got to go.  My brother and sister in law were in town so they got to come along too.  It was so much fun.  We started out the day with lunch at the Fish Hopper, which is fast becoming a family tradition for my parents.  It was delicious!  I rarely get to eat seafood since Ryan doesn't like it, so this was an extra special treat for me.  I ordered a crab and lobster ravioli dish with shrimp and scallops.  Yum!  Ryan got a turkey sandwich.  Boring!  While we were waiting for people to finish their food, my mom and I took the kids down to the beach to look at star fish.

Then we headed to the aquarium.  It was a really cool aquarium and Lucas had a lot of fun.  He LOVES fish so he just ran from tank to tank looking at everything.  They had this little kid area with fun stuff to climb on, and a tunnel to climb through.  Lucas loved playing with his cousins.

I loved playing with Charlotte.

Lucas loved playing with Charlotte too.  He was quite taken with her and followed her around watching out for her and trying to keep her out of trouble.  It was really cute.  Here he is taking her down the slide.

Lucas's other favorite was Sadie.  They were inseparable for the last half of the visit.

There was this cool waterfall room where the water would fill up and then splash onto the walls and roof of the room.  Lucas loved it in there and would have stayed in there all day if we had let him.

 After the aquarium we went to Ghirardelli and got some ice cream sundaes... and did some more Charlotte admiring.

Charlotte really was a such a cute little girl and Lucas was so good with her.  It was fun to watch him interact with her.  I just wish we had a little baby for him to play with all the time.  I almost took Charlotte home with us, but I decided I might get in trouble for that so I left her.  Too bad, look how darling she is!

 I didn't really get many pictures on Thanksgiving, but we'll pretend the dinner looked something like this.

Okay... it didn't look quite like that in real life, but it still tasted amazing.  Lucas enjoyed another day of running around and playing with his cousins.  Here they are hiding under the bed. 

 After dinner and pie, we packed up in the car and drove down to San Diego for an anniversary / family vacation, but I'll post more on that tomorrow.

We really did have a good Thanksgiving.  It was fun to spend time with family, and watch Lucas play with his cousins.  I was singing to Lucas the other day while I was putting him to bed and I decided to sing Count your Blessings to get in the Thanksgiving mood.  I love that song and I think its message is wonderful.  It was a good opportunity to reflect on the blessings we've been given this year.  I especially like the part where it says, "... count your many blessings; every doubt will fly..."  Sometimes it's easy to get discouraged and think that maybe you've gotten the short end of the stick in life; but when you take the time to be grateful for what you do have, you realize that you really are blessed and that Heavenly Father is looking out for you.