The Wild Wortley's Adventures!: Our fun weekend!

First off we had a great weekend together! Mark worked a normal man’s week of work last week (5 days of 8 hours). Monday is when he’s supposed to start his nights…well sort of. I love getting 97% of the facts a little before they happen and then he throws in the last 3% right before! Monday he will work a 15-16 hour shift, then Tuesday night go back in the evening and start that p.m. business…anyway, forget all that cause it’s the weekend baby!!

What to do with seriously SO many options! I really want to do the 17-mile drive…so Saturday morning we are going to pack our lunch and just go! I have to say having a lot of my 31 stuff here with me is AWESOME! I’ve seriously been using them constantly!

Ok…we are trying to get out the door…why does this have to be SO hard…why is this place torn UP-SIDE-DOWN! We just woke up not too long ago! We have a large tote packed with beach towels, suites, and sunscreen (zipper pouch)…we have the large cooler bag packed with lunch, I have my purse all ready…now where did the kids go?

Please just imagine my life RIGHT now if you will;

Grissom thinks it’s funny to run into our cloth's hanging on the bottom rack of our closet and hide in the clothes! When he knocks Mark’s clothes onto the floor he throws them into a pile outside the closet…this is JUST what he’s doing right now cause I can hear him laugh at himself! Ha! I love his giggle! Keegan’s under Ella’s bed waiting to grab her by the foot and freak her out…and she knows he’s down there and is jumping back and forth between the 2 twin beds in their room…Mark’s suppose to be helping me get the van loaded and he’s nowhere to be found…it’s NOT like we have many places to hide around here…I’m going to be bald by the time we get back home! Mark comes back to tell me the van’s ready but I’m not sure how that can be seeing that nothing we packed is in the van nor are any of the people going…how is the van ready? Hm…”kids, let’s go!!”

On the way to the 17-mile drive we saw that there was a street fair happening in Old Monterey! So we thought we’d come back! We LOVED the drive! It was breathtakingly beautiful and we kept telling each other how amazing this ocean is…one of the first stops we came to was called the Restless Sea @ Point Joe. This is a part of the bay where the waves come in from different directions and crash into each other and then into the rocks and beach line. What is the 17-mile drive? Well, it’s just a 17 mile stretch of road that runs close to the shore. If you’ve heard of Pebble Beach that is where this is. We came to another stop and it was called Seal Rock. I got excited thinking we might get to see some seals! HOLY COW!! It was super cute to see them ALL over the rock, jumping all around the place…until you took a breath to breathe! SICK!! Let’s just say this was the fastest stop we made…even for the kids! We all got out looked at the sweet sea lions then all covered our noses and went running back to the van! It was pretty funny…even Grissom went running yelling, “Stinky!!” This is also the area where Mansions and the Hollywood/rich people have homes. There were some pretty amazing homes around there, but I must say most were no bigger than our homes in Indiana. We did some research and IF we picked up our house and brought it over here it would be worth oh, about $6 million! We ate lunch on some big rocks on one of the beaches in this area. While exploring we saw a whole village of crabs! And we saw the beach where the sea lions were having their babies!

The kids were tired so we decided to find a movie theater and we ended up finding the Del Monte Mall (YEA for me!) We had a ball watching HOP! Keegan giggled throughout the whole movie. You know we’ve come a long way in the van because even Grissom sat in his seat and watched the entire time! We ate a yummy dinner, trying to fit in, at the California Pizza Kitchen – YUMMY!

Sunday we decided to try out that Shoreline Church that we found on the beach last Sunday. It was a lot like Trader’s right before our big move. Their sanctuary reminds us of when he had church in our building's gym! They have 3 services every week…which means we get 3 tries to make it on time every week! Yes!

Ella did great going to class, she was excited to make friends, and Keegan was super shy and wouldn’t go in. His teacher got down eye to eye with him talking to him trying to coax him in, but nothing was working. I joined the pow-wow on my knees and just like every mother trying to stay calm but ditch their child and sweetly said, “Son, you have a choice. Either you give mommy a kiss and walk into this room by yourself and have a great time. Or you can keep this up and I’ll have her peel you off my leg and I’ll leave before you have a chance to give mommy a kiss good bye. You know we’ll be back very soon to get you. Make your choice in 3 – 2 -…” The nice teacher kept talking to him and it was working cause he took her hand. She totally sealed the deal when she FINALLY said, “…after story time we have SNACK!!” Sign, sealed, delivered…and I’m out! Sweet!! He almost started pulling HER into the room! Ha!! I love that boy! We went to take Grissom, but his class was full, so we were going to be lead to the ‘family room’ (This is an awesome idea. It’s like an overflow room but with the understanding that children WILL be included. They had little table and chairs, games, coloring books, blocks, etc. for the kids and a huge screen and chairs like a sanctuary for the parents). This was not where I wanted to be for our first time, I wanted to LEAVE all my kids at this time…so I just prayed a quick prayer…and I kid you not as we started walking down this hallway a lady was coming towards us, seeing what was going on she grabbed a volunteer and added her to the 2’s room just so they’d have room for Grissom! YEAH! Worship was nice but NOT home. We did meet a few people afterwards who were really friendly. The kids all had a great time especially walking outside. They had huge piles of all kinds of doughnuts…we all had to grab our favorites!! Mommy got a refill of her coffee too!! Mmmmm! It was funny to see what we call Kiosks (booths to get involved) they had tents all lined up outside! It was going to be a beautiful day!

After church we came home grabbed a quick lunch and headed out again. This time we all wanted a part of that super fun Street Fair; called The Good Old Days of Monterey! What a fun time!! The only problem was the kids wanted to ride the 3 rides they had and it was going to cost us way more than we had on hand…so poor things had to settle for the Dunking Station – yet they both loved it! Ella took 4 tries; hit the target with her 4^th try but it wasn’t hard enough. Keegan steps up and slugs’ one real close to the target…then totally slammed the kid on his 2^nd throw. The guy running the booth LOVED him! He felt pretty awesome when everyone cheered until he turned around to SEE everyone cheering for him, then he runs head first into my stomach all embarrassed! What a cutie!

Our family received a ton of attention people kept telling us how cute our kids were…I’m not sure if it really was the cute kids (which I was sold on!!) or if it was a family circus thing…most families out here don’t have multiple kids, 1 or 2 but not a lot with 3.

We hit the beach just one more time before heading home for dinner, bath, and bedtime! As we were walking along the beach we got to see a sea lion that was making his way onto shore. The closer he got the sadder it became. He was obviously sick and dying. There were some ‘super’ animal savers protecting his rights until the real rescuers could come – kind of funny!

Also the other thing I found irritating…I mean unreal (cause I’ve only seem stuff like this on T.V.) was a silent protest. As we drive past one of the many grassy areas there were 100’s of black boots spread out with flowers on each pair. Then the sign stating their protest: This is the Human Cost of War! How stupid are these people…yes it IS the cost, but its bigger then this cost…it reminded me of God and the way he uses each of us to get the attention of someone else. My life is already saved, so to take me out of this world to show someone else who Christ is and what He did for them is completely ‘worth’ it!! Anyway…funny connection! Their cost is extremely important to me and my children. I am very grateful and indebted to each and every soldier who gave his life so we could be free!

Kids all ready for bed. Yes, this is how they sleep! It works...Ella was better then the boys together! ha!! You can see how fun jumping back and forth is.