Monterey Beach Trip!

Last weekend was a very fun time for us. One thing Rickey and I have been saying is we need to actually REALLY Plan some trips, we always *talk* about taking trips and never actually go! :( so this past Friday, Rickey went to home depot (our second home at this point haha) and came back and said, "it's going to be so hot here this weekend, we should do something, lets go somewhere, lets go to the beach." I said, "ok, sure which beach?" He said, "lets go to Monterey, lets stay there this weekend" I said, "wait, you want me to book a hotel for tomorrow???? Isn't this kind of, like, totally spur of the moment unplanned and SO NOT like you?" Hahaha he said, "yeah, we always say we should do this or that, but we don't go so let's just go for it!"

So Alyssa runs to get her little suitcase and is super excited to go to a hotel, the poor girl hasn't been to one in so long because all the trips we DO make are visits to family so we never stay in hotels. I asked my Facebook friends for recommendations, and went to my trusted yelp to see reviews and help me choose a hotel. With this being such a spur of the moment trip, my top 2 choices were booked but I still found an awesome hotel. It's the only hotel in Monterey with beachfront access, and they are pet friendly so our Cody would be able to come along with us and we had an ocean view room. It was so beautiful!!

The weather here at home was scorching so we were hoping for a little bit of that heat to be at the beach but here in Nor Cal, beaches are always overcast and cold. :( it didn't matter though, we just wanted to get the kids out and even if they just played in the sand and got their feet wet, they still had such a blast. When we got there, the sun was out but it was in the 60s, so still chilly. We played in the sand, built a sand castle, raced around with daddy, and just had so much fun!

We checked into our hotel at 4pm, had a few hiccups- they didn't have us in a pet friendly room and we were going to have to wait 1 1/2 hr but the hotel manager was very helpful and got us in a pet friendly room, still with an ocean view in 10 minutes and gave us vouches for the hotel restaurant. We finally went to our room, got all cleaned up from playing in the beach and headed out to dinner. We ate at the restaurant in our hotel since they gave us $50 vouchers and while the food was nothing to rave about, it wasn't awful it was pretty average, I'd give it a 6-7 out of 10. The thing this meal has that made it great was the view! Eating while having the ocean right I front of you was simply stunning!

After dinner, we decided to get a few things from a nearby grocery store and have dessert in our room in our pjs and be super comfy. We made banana splits and watched shrek and the kids fell fast asleep. The next morning, Alyssa and I had our breakfast on the deck watching the ocean waves and we saw a "pirate ship" which was the most amazing thing to her. :) she also could not believe that people were out there so early in the morning paddle boarding, she said the water was just tooo freezing for her to ever go in so early LOL.

We lounged after breakfast, I read a book on my kindle, the kids played with Cody and by noon we were checked out of our room. Rickey has been to Monterey plenty of times before for work related reasons so he took us to this little hole n the wall Mexican place for lunch and it was sooooo naughty and delicious! All in all, it was a short but sweet trip we took and we can't wait for our next trip, we are already talking about when the next 3 day holiday is and what we want to do.