Final Friday - Graduation

After almost four years of hard work, extensive research,  countless hours of studying, edits and reams of papers for drafts, the day finally arrived, graduation. The culmination of this all consuming effort.  It was a very special feeling sitting in the audience, seeing Bob walk down the aisle in his black robe and later being hooded on stage by some of his faculty advisers.
No words can describe how proud we are, and how excited we are to have more of Bob's time now that he is a doctor and does not need to study so much any more... although I hear rumors he is working on final edits for one article and has ideas for others floating through his mind.  It is our desire to instill a long life love for learning in the boys and Bob is a great role model for this habit.

Last call for beach time

Lukas and Noah had one last chance to dig and play on Carmel Beach this week. I am fearful that the city of Carmel will come looking for us, accusing us of removing the beach based on the amount of sand that we carry in the car.... but we had fun and that is what counts!

An absolute must

No visit to CA Central Coast and Monterey/Carmel is complete without a bonfire on the beach. We packed everyone into the car and headed out in time to catch the sunset. The children spent most of the time by the water's edge, building sand castles and barriers to protect the sand castles from the waves and only when they were completely soaked could we lure them up to enjoy the heat of the fire. The sunset did not disappoint, although the children found throwing dry kelp on the fire far more interesting - it makes a fire cracker sound, so no wonder!

One more time at Lover's Point

Sunny weather, a light breeze and out of town visitors - perfect combination for a trip to Lover's Point - even if we were just there. The boys had fun showing their friends all the little critters and Bob and I realized how hard it is to keep track of five children - we kept counting heads constantly.

We really enjoyed our afternoon of being a big family.

Fun app

Our last week in Monterey, and we have out of town visitors! It is a real treat to be able to dedicate our time fully to friends, without the distractions of 'real, daily life.' The boys, of course, had to show off their most recent app, probably one that makes some sort of noise judging by the smiles on everyone's face.
We explored a new park to get some of the energy out of little bodies cooped up in a car for too long

Lover's Point

The benefit of not having a house to take care of, and a few vacations days to use up before graduation, is free time to play. We packed a bag of delicious food and headed to the tide pools -one of our favorite spots. Bob yielded the knife to slice the freshly baked baguette and the boys piled the cold cuts high.  The boys looked for crabs, starfish, urchins and Noah even tried to catch a few small fish.

And here is yet another proof of how great of a Dad Bob is, Noah was tired, his feet wet, and he did not want to walk... so Bob gave him a piggy back ride to the car.

Happy Father's Day

Sunday evening we celebrated Father's Day with the world's best Dad that two boys could eve ask for. Since we are 'homeless' we were 'forced' to eat out, and headed to Bernadus Lodge in Carmel to dine al fresco style.

The Coast

It never gets old driving down Highway 1 - the ocean, the mountains.. we will surely miss this view. We took a drive on Sunday after church and stopped at a few spots for photos.The coast is showing off its very best side, the weather is nothing short of spectacular, none of the typical June Gloom....

A First

NPS is where Bob has spent a lot of his time these past four years. This week, he offered friends a tour of the famous Del Monte Hotel, and we tagged along. We have walked through the hotel several times and even stayed there on a few occasions, however, we have never been up in the tour.  So we were all excited to climb the stairs to the tower and get a bird's eye view of the city. The weather cooperated, it was clear and sunny and we could see clear across to Pacific Grove and even Santa Cruz in the other direction. Bob also treated us to lunch at NPS, another first :-)

Favorite

Lukas and Noah's favorite activity here in California is almost certainly beach time. We spent a sunny morning on the beach, digging and exploring. The boys even fashioned saws out of kelp and sticks they found - tools used to make straighter and sharper lines, I was told.

Repeat

Five years ago, we came to Monterey and Carmel for a mini vacation. We asked a stranger to take our picture at the top of Carmel Beach. This week, we asked another stranger to take our picture. The same family just a bit taller, (and/or bigger?), a bit smarter and with a whole lot of learning and experience under our belts - the last five years have been a whirlwind of fun, challenges, experiences and learning. I know I could not have predicted half of what we have done...
Here is to our next five years - and another picture in 2018.

Chefs in the making

Noah wanted to master the making of our special guacamole and Lukas wanted to create a new side dish - each using our left over cans, bottles, jars and tubs.
Although we were all a bit skeptical towards Lukas' warm carrot salad, it turned out to be a new family favorite, and sadly we did not get a picture of it before we almost devoured the entire bowl.
Their repertoire of cooking is growing, maybe they are ready to take over a bit more of the cooking responsibilities for our family?

Yummy

We are eating out our food supplies, emptying jars, finishing dressings, etc.. Noah happily volunteered to finish the Nutella, and discovered how tasty grapes covered in Nutella is - if only there had been more grapes and of course more Nutella.