A Day in Santa Cruz

A few weekends ago, Phillip's brother came to visit us for the weekend. He is more outdoorsy than his other brothers so we decided to take him to Santa Cruz for the day and go kayaking. I'm not so sure he had a good time kayaking, but Phil and I sure did. Not only did we see the usual sea lions and otters. But we saw the little harbor seals as well. Those are the smaller seals that are lighter in color and have spots on them. The sea lions can be a little scary when you are out in the ocean, they are huge, and loud and so mean to each other, but the harbor seals are just plain cute! The otters are adorable too. We saw a little pair just hanging out together and cracking their mussels on their belly. I want to snuggle an otter. The best part though was seeing dolphins while we were out. Not just 1-2 either. No, we saw a whole pod of them. We were watching the pod to our right as they traveled surfacing every so often and we glanced to our left and a dolphin surfaced about 10 feet from us. It startled Phil, especially since he is Mister Safety and always follows the rules. You are really not supposed to get close to the wildlife, but we weren't seeking them out, sometimes you just can't help what comes close to you when you are out there. 

Phil's brother fell in. I felt bad, that water was cold. We were wearing wetsuits, but it takes awhile for those to warm up. It took him so long to get back up that the lifeguard hopped on his surfboard and paddled out to make sure he was okay. After that, he wanted to go back, so we did. I don't think he felt very comfortable about there and had a hard time keeping up with Phil and me. We were in a double kayak so we had twice the power, in spite of the fact that Phil says I never paddle, which isn't true. I am a girl for goodness sakes, I don't have the muscle capacity that he does right?

Are you jealous of my wetsuit worthy body? :-)

After kayaking we had lunch on the beach by the canal. It was a gorgeous day, and it is never a gorgeous day in Santa Cruz. Phil and I have been very blessed with the weather on our day trips lately. 

Looks like Phil should have brought some sunglasses. Or not, shortly after this was taken Phil's brother lost the Ray Bans he is wearing. Oopsie.

I love this guy.

 Mandatory feet in the sand shot. 

Phil's brother decided to go swimming. This time on purpose. 

He looks like he is freezing, clearly the water was cold at the shore too.

 

 

My "Birthday" Weekend

My birthday is at the end of this month, but Phil will be in Delft for a conference that week so a few weeks ago, I sent him a very detailed list of what I wanted to do the weekend before he left to celebrate. So this weekend we celebrated my birthday. It started with us driving to San Francisco to eat lunch at Thai Time. It was delicious! I love Thai food and their portions were huge, we ended up taking 1/2 of our meal home. I snapped this after we had stared to devour our food.

Here is the handsome hubby.

Then we stopped at an Asian market. 

We bought this mango because it was the largest mango I have seen in my life. Seriously, it was 2.5 lbs.

On the way to our destination, we stopped at a pullout because the view was beautiful and it is never clear in San Francisco, but on this day it was. If you look closly you can see Alcatraz and the Palace of Fine Arts in the background. 

Finally we went to the Walt Disney Family Museum. We are crazy about Disney. In the 4 years we have been married, we have been to Disneyland twice, Disney World, and on a Disney Cruise. The museum was alot of fun. 

Phil made us pizza for dinner and after we went to visit some friends who live in Aubi Dhabi but are in town for a bit. What a great way to celebrate my birthday.