Santa Cruz - Monday (Lighthouse Museum, Wharf, Beach & Boardwalk)

For several months, we had looked forward to starting summer vacation with a trip back to Santa Cruz!   We went last year with most of my siblings and the Cowden family and LOVED it!   As Jon and I started to talk about trips for the summer, we quickly agreed that we'd love to go back and love to see if Beth & Jeff (Jon's sister) and the Rasmussen family could come with us.   Amazingly, we found a week that we could all go - and as a bonus, that Jon's mom and sister Rebecca could fly in and meet us there as well.

We all arrived on Sunday (Father's Day) afternoon.   This is the house we stayed at (just like last year).  We knew the layout and knew that we'd be able to put all of us in it.
 

And this was our view from the front door - the beach was literally right across the street - meaning we didn't have to pack all the stuff in the cars and drive it all back (with all the sand that goes with it).

I couple of things that we did that made this such a successful trip, that I want to remember, were:

*   Each family took a night to cook dinner.   This worked out great - we ate delicious food, saved money on eating out and had yummy leftovers for the next day's lunch.   And then, we treated ourselves to dinner on Boardwalk, dinner at a local burger joint and breakfast one morning at Aldo's.

*  Each family had a room and we slept together as families.   At the end of the day, after playing together all day, the kids would sleep and then be refreshed and ready for more fun the next day.  We were also able to keep all our "germs" to ourselves and not spread colds/coughs/etc.

*  We'd plan an activity for each morning, so we could get the kids out of the house.  There wasn't a ton to do in the house, except play board games, so it was nice to take them somewhere.  Then we'd come home, eat lunch and then go to the beach for the afternoon.  This made it great for napping babies, weary mothers, etc.   

The one thing that I was so impressed by was how well the kids got along.  We had 15 kids among the three families - 15!    I never once heard anyone  say they were being left out or that they were being teased.  All the kids helped each other, played with each other, laughed together and had a great time!   It was really incredible!

A lot of this pictures are from Kirsten and I appreciate her letting me use them too!

 This is Paisley (age 2) and Hailey (age 3)

 

Monday morning, we attempted to go to a lighthouse museum, but it was closed.  It was really windy, which made it quite cold, so we headed to the wharf instead.   The buildings blocked the wind, so it made it perfect to walk around.

There is a candy store at the wharf that we looked in.   Jon and I then challenged everyone to a Warhead competition.  Everyone had to eat one and see if they could stand the sour-ness!

 Kate & Hailey

 

 Hailey fell asleep walking around.  She clutched that purse wherever we went and unfortunately, would not let anyone else play with the toys she had brought in it.  She'd hid her stuff in cupboards in the house and then quickly discovered that if she went to the Grandma & Aunt Rebecca's room, she could sit on the bed in between them and have a grand time.

 

 There are plenty of sea lions to watch.  There was one little baby one.

 

 Emily & Paisley - Paisley sure loved Emily and was happy to let Emily carry her around.

 

Emily, Paisley, Brynlee, Jack, Hannah, Karli, Ethan, Kyle, Lindsey, Hailey & Kate

 

 

As usual, after eating lunch, we headed to the beach -

 



Monday night is $1 rides at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, so we headed there for the evening.  It's a really nice Boardwalk with fun rides.  We ate corn dogs and fries for dinner and rode late into the evening.

 Kate & Karli

 

 Rebecca was amazing - I would seriously be in a line trying to put littler kids on and she would appear and save me by going on with them.  Kate & Kyle loved this ride with her!

 

 Jeff & Tyler

 

This was one of the last rides that we all went on together.  Lindsey & Ethan had positioned themselves to sit together behind everyone else - that is until Beth saved the day by putting Jared and Tyler with them. :)

 

The best ride at the Boardwalk is the Giant Dipper.  It's an old wooden roller coaster and so much fun!   I went with Jon a couple of times and then Kirsten and I rode it together.  We tend to get laughing so hard on rides that we nearly pee our pants - but we didn't!   So, so fun!