Adventures with Mom & Dad

We had a great time with Mom & Dad, who came to Monterey for a visit this weekend. We went to Duffy's (Dad's favorite pub in Monterey), Mom redeemed her Mother's Day gift of a massage, and on Saturday we walked 5+ miles up and down the recreation trail. We stopped at the Trailside Cafe for breakfast (Yum!), and stopped by the aquarium so they could see the two newest exhibits, "Wild About Otters" and "Secret Lives of Seahorses."

Here's a picture of the Leafy Seadragon from the seahorse exhibit:
And a picture of Mom & Dad by the rec trail:
On our way back to the car, we stopped at the new Clement Hotel for an afternoon glass of wine & to check out the ocean life. We spotted a lone sea otter chomping down on an abalone. I pulled out my camera to make a short video, right when another otter popped up & stole the abalone from the first otter - d'oh! Check out the (very) short clip:

Thanks Mom & Dad for a weekend full of good food & lots of fun!

4th of July BBQ

Monterey decided to go all curmudgeonly this year & cancel the big fireworks display over the bay (I don't care if we don't have a city budget, no fireworks display just stinks!), so Bill and I decided to host a BBQ on our patio. We invited our friends over for a traditional 4th of July feast, including hot dogs & hamburgers with all the fixin's, potato salad, cole slaw, "hot olives", margaritas, and beer, beer, beer. The sun actually came out right before the afternoon event, and we didn't have to bust out the patio heater and chiminea until the sun went down.

My new cupcake cookbook came in handy - I made some patriotic cupcakes for our dessert.

Our littlest party attendee gave the cupcakes high marks!