Friday, November 30, 2012

Shark, meet SharkBean

Two weeks ago, Andrew and I were invited to his cousin's wedding reception in Monterey. We decided to make a day of it, and invited my parents along to join us during the day, and then while we attended the reception that evening, they could have a nice dinner.

It was a beautiful drive, and Monterey was perfectly overcast. Just the way I like it.

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Genevieve and Grandpa Knitmore on the Wharf

We arrived around lunchtime, walked down Fisherman's Wharf, and picked a wonderful restaurant - Domenico's. They were friendly and welcoming, the food was SUPERB, and the view couldn't be beat.

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Taking in the scenery

Can you see them?

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Sea lions, sunning.
Sea lions! They weren't having a particularly noisy day, but Genevieve LOVED watching them. In all of the times I have been to Monterey and had a Meal With a ViewTM, none of the views have come CLOSE to this one.

(Well, maybe the mating sea gulls on the other side of the window at Bubba Gumps about ten years ago, but that was awesome in an our-server-was-horrified kind of way.)

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You can't see it, but we're wearing matching sweaters
Genevieve was amazing. After a long drive, she sat on our laps until the food came, and then she sat *so politely* in the high chair. We all had really excellent food, and she had delicious, perfectly prepared veggies that were SO good that she did her happy bounce with every bite. If I hadn't been busy being present in the moment, I would have filmed it to share. (Next time.)

After lunch, we made a quick stop at Happy Girl Kitchen Co to pick up some necessities for the house. And by "necessities" I mean summer apricot jam and blood orange preserves, along with a few other things that sounded delicious.

Generally speaking, I hate jam and preserves because I find them cloyingly sweet. Not so with the Happy Girl preserves. Their stuff tastes like summer, and I get uncharacteristically greedy with it.

Finally, we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (or the Cetacean Institute, for the Star Trek fans in the audience), where we moseyed through until closing time.

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Some of us didn't last that long
We packed up and went to change for the evening's festivities. The wedding reception was in the aquarium, between the jellyfish exhibit and the seahorse exhibit. There is something inherently cooler about being there after hours. Or maybe that's just my inner nerd speaking. (HA. INNER nerd. As if I'm not layer after layer of nerd.)

Dinner was the pièce de résistance; tables were set up in the open sea exhibit and we dined by soft candlelight and the light of the tank as we watched sharks, rays, and turtles (among other creatures) swimming around and doing their thing.

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Personalized jellyfish for the bride and groom, courtesy of Andrew

The best part? Getting to show Genevieve all the different kinds of sharks.

All things being equal, I think she preferred the meditative properties of watching the anchovies. I think it's probably a developmental thing; like visual white noise.

White, fishy noise.

5 comments:

  1. The anchovies/sardines? in both schools in the bigger tank, and in the round ceiling tank are my favorite things at the Aquarium. :D

    The jellyfish are a close second though. And the otters. Otters are cute. Glad you had such a wonderful time. I adore the matching sweaters.

    Your blogs always make me squee when I see a new one. Just so you know.

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  2. OK, that sounds like the BEST TIME EVER. Your daughter is a lucky girl. She is going to be so smart with all the wonderful immersive experiences you are giving her. :)

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  3. Watching the anchovies is the best part of the aquarium!

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  4. Thank you for sharing your lovely trip with us! What fun! I'm loving the pictures of you and your daughter together, I'm sure she will love them 1000 times more. We never know, as you said before, how long we will have each other, (thinking of Kerrie), continue to enjoy the ride!

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  5. Love, love, love the Monterey Aquarium. Back in the 90's when I worked for Apple, we had the company holiday party there -- after hours. I spent almost the whole evening just wandering the exhibits, it was fabulous.

    When Genevieve is old enough to do Scouts (or something similar), see the Aquarium does something like this: http://www.pdza.org/zoo-snooze-overnights You don't get much sleep (it's way too cool watching the sharks in your sleeping bag to even consider sleeping) and it's one of those experiences that the kids talk about for years afterwards.

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