Nully Baby Blog: Santa Cruz Vacation Part 1

We spent a wonderful week in and around Santa Cruz last week for our annual family vacation! I took so many pictures that I have decided to split my recap in to 2 separate posts. Part 1 is Monday and Tuesday.

We left the house by 9am Monday morning. It takes about 3 hours to get from Rocklin to Santa Cruz, so we planned a couple stops. As we approached our 1st (surprise) stop, we told the kids it was some type of factory. Jenna guessed a chocolate factory. We asked if anyone else had any guesses, and Lucas shouted out "A chicken factory!!" because one of his favorite foods is fried chicken strips. We thought this was hilarious. The kids were excited to be at the Jelly Belly Factory for the very first time!

We did the tour and then tried not to eat too much candy on the way to our next stop.....

Dino's in Newark! We really miss this place since moving away. We ate lunch, drove by our old houses, and got back on the road.

We arrived in Aptos around 3:30, excited to see our beach house for the week. If you look carefully, you can see the beach from our upstairs balcony!

The main family room was small but of course had a great view. It was on the 2nd floor of the house, along with the kitchen and a bedroom that we didn't use.

Downstairs was the kids' room, where Adam slept with the 3 big kids.

There was a bunk bed and 2 additional twin beds.

After we unpacked the car I decided we needed to walk down to the beach to get some energy out.

I look shockingly tan next to Adam's foot.

The view from the beach. This area of Aptos seemed a bit run down to me, but that was just my observation. You really can't beat staying 2 blocks from the beach!

Lucas was so excited to be there!

The kids played in the sand....

And then Jenna crashed in the sand.

Andrew moved heavy logs around.

And Ryan was having the time of his life. Don't let the t-shirt and shorts deceive you....it was cold!!

We headed out to find some dinner, but couldn't find any restaurant that seemed kid friendly. So we ended up at Safeway and bought some frozen pizza for dinner, plus a few breakfast foods for the week.

I had let each child pick out a special food to bring on our trip. Ryan chose chips ahoy cookie cereal. Only on vacation!

Tuesday was Boardwalk day!! We got there at 10am, before anything was even open.

It started out cold but the fog burned off and it was a beautiful day.

My friend and college roommate Jesselle came and spent the day with us. Her cute kids had so much fun!

My big boys went on most of the rides with the little boys, since they were too small to ride by themselves.

The merry-go-round was a crowd favorite.

It was all fun and games until this tilt-a-whirl ride. The boys wanted to go on it, and I offered to take them. I remember riding this all the time at Newark Days as a teenager, and absolutely loving it. I snapped this photo of us right as it started. Oh my gosh. It was terrible. The boys hated it and I was pretty much praying I wouldn't throw up as it spun us around over and over. When it ended we were all really dizzy, and Lucas and I immediately got headaches and nausea afterwards. We found a table and put our heads down.

Luckily some ice cream cones helped us to all feel better!

Later in the afternoon we headed down to the beautiful beach.

Ryan found a crab!

They played with it for a while, before it crawled back under the sand and disappeared.

Lucas is definitely my beach-loving child, with no fear. He would go out farther than everyone, and we repeatedly had to tell him to get back from the big waves.

This guy chose to just cover himself in sand.

After some freezing cold kids and a change of clothes, we attempted to find some dinner on the boardwalk. Unfortunately our options were limited to fried food and more fried food. We ended up with an amazing view and some pretty bad food. Luckily the company was great!