Like a sting ray, only smaller...

We spent the long weekend in Monterey.

We go there as often as we can.  Something about the lovely, seventy degree climate, the aquarium (which you can see Zoomboy enjoying with oomph!) and the smell of the sea makes the entire family gazunga scads of happy.  Mate, my beloved Mate, who has not really had a vacation out of town that didn't involve work in a LOOONGGG time, was also gazunga scads of happy.  

We ate crepes (Squish liked hers with apples and cinnamon), 

 And went on a whale watching excursion (during which we saw NO whales--but did get a raincheck) and ate clam chowder in bread bowls and ran along the beach (where we saw dolphins offshore.  Go figure.)

Mate popped a tire on the car going into a place called Phat Burger, run by two kids who had been best friends since high school, and made THE. BEST. FOOD. EVER.  Including sweet potato fries, and garlic fries that lived for hours after eaten. He got the tire fixed while we were running on the beach, and said next time we go there, he'll know how to take that turn.  And that we WOULD go there again, because, as I said, BEST. BURGER. EVER.  

We saw that rarity of rarities--Big T on a family outing, as well as a photographed smile on Chicken.  We spent the nights in a hotel room which slept six, but only had a television in the room with one bed.  All six of us crammed onto that one bed to watch the last six episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, on Nickle-odian, which replayed the whole series for the weekend.  Some people might have called that odd.  We called it family.

 And we got to see Zoomboy in his natural element--where the sea and the sky contend with each other, to see whose roar is the loudest.  Even Zoomboy was ready to go home at the end. (He astounded us all on the way home, btw.  We got stuck in traffic, and he had to pee in a bottle.  Besides making the whole car giggle terribly, he filled a 16 oz water bottle--Mate and I have now sworn NEVER to ask him "Can you hold it?" again.  Obviously he CAN hold it--and if the boy's gotta go, he damned well has to go!)     Everybody had pink cheeks, sore from laughing at the end of three days.

Waking up this morning to get everyone off to school was hard.  But I asked the short people, "Did we have a good time?"

"YES!"

This is my family, having a wonderful time:-)