We won't take anything..

After my second successful morning of P90X (that's right, I"m going to be really toned in only 90 days..), and getting Fox to take a 2 1/2 hour nap (which is approximately 2 1/2 hours more than usual), AND getting all the Christmas stuff put away, I was feeling great vibes for today. So I decided to take the kids down to the Cabrillo National Monument (Lighthouse and the Tide Pools). Low tide was at 1:50, but it definitely took us longer to get into the monument and find a parking spot (30 minutes just for that!), so I was starting to doubt my decision when we were just getting out of the car at 2:30, but it was a big hit. I thought the the girls would like the tide pools, but when I told them they couldn't take shells out to bring home, I almost had a mutiny on my hands. Luckily, once they saw their first hermit crab, they were all over it. We sort of scared Lauren - on the way I was saying, "Just in case you are going to get washed out to sea, you need to stay by me." then even when there were NO waves anywhere near and I told her to just relax her sisters had her freaked out by telling her how slippery the rocks were. This did make it a little precarious with Fox in the Baby Bjorn and then Lauren wanting to hold my hand, but we made it. The older two girls brought their cameras as well, so I think their favorite thing was to find something, then take a picture of it. Ashley took this one.. Brooke took this one along with pictures of almost every exhibit in the visitors' center

Highlight was definitely the starfish, although I thought the anemones were cool, along with a little fish (looked like a little rockfish?) that was just sitting in the middle of a pool of water (until Lauren tried to come see it and put her foot right in the middle of the pool - he didn't want to come out for a while after that)

This is one of my favorite self-portraits in a while - thank goodness for a well-placed trash can on the way up!

Surprisingly, the girls enjoyed the Visitor's Center at the Lighthouse, and I think they were actually just impressed that we lived this close to a National Park. Looks like we need to start getting out a little more. We didn't even get to go all the way over to the lighthouse (which was really upsetting to Lauren) because we ran out of time looking through the one small exhibit, shopping in the gift shop while I fed Fox, and the girls even signed up and did a little Jr Ranger program)- so I guess we'll just have to go back :)