The day after school got out, we left bright & early for a week-long Central Coast getaway. For the first few days of our trip, we met up with some of our college friends for our annual WOFOFF gathering, and camped together at the Morro Bay State Park.
Morro Bay, here we come!
Our friends the Knights & the Wisners joined us this year. Together, we had 11 kids and 6 adults! We missed the Bradleys & Ben!
Here is our whole family enjoying the campfire!
The campsite had tons of tall eucalyptus trees, and plenty of shade!
Camping = Fun!
Roasting hot dogs over the campfire!
S'mores are the best!!!
...and so are Triple Double Oreos!
The dads even had their own fun trying to get the fire to burn as big & bright as it could!
One day, we hiked around the state park & visited the Morro Bay Museum of Natural History.
Then we packed up for an afternoon at the Morro Strand beach - right next to Morro Rock!
We also spent some time walking around downtown Morro Bay
There is a lot of sea life to discover at Morro Bay!
And back at camp, we visited the Summer Solstice celebration which had plenty of hands-on fun (reptiles!) for the kids!
The kids also had turns milking a cow and washing laundry just like the 'old days!'
Yay for WOFOFF! Can't wait for next year!
After we said goodbye to our friends, we planned to stay a few more days in & around SLO to explore and check out more of our favorite places. We started by renting a bicycle surrey in downtown Morro. The kids had been eyeing these when we walked around town the day before, so we took one for a ride & rode down to the Rock, around town & up to the Morro Bay Shell Shop where we let the kids pick their favorite seashell.
We also stopped by the Brown Butter Cookie Company in Cayucos - - seriously the best cookies ever!
One morning we got ready and took the kids for a hike in Montaña de Oro. We had heard about their great tidepools and went looking for them.
Along the way we saw these really cool rock formations!
Isn't the Central Coast so gorgeous?!
The kids filled their pockets with their favorite rocks & seashells and everyone had so much fun!
We also loved visiting the Cal Poly campus. We took the kids to the Leaning Pine Arboretum, which is a beautiful secluded area that not many students know about (right next to the Horse Unit and behind the Plant shop)! It was hot in SLO, so the kids loved running through the sprinklers there.
Andrew and I usually make a habit of visiting the arboretum... looking back at our old photos, here's one of us standing in the very same spot (taken in 2005)!
We also visited the Cal Poly store & picked out some Cal Poly apparel (just t-shirts) for each of the kiddos.
It was especially fun to see the kids faces when we introduced them to Bubblegum Alley...
...where we all *carefully* made our contributions to the walls!
The next day we treated the kids to see the movie 'Finding Dory' in these cool theatre chairs! What a coincidence that the movie took place in Morro Bay?!
Then we spent the afternoon hiking up to the P!
Love this view!
No trip to San Luis would be complete without eating at Firestone's! Oh. my. goodness! This was SOOO good! (We actually ate here TWICE because well, why not? You can never have enough trip-tip sandwiches with that sweet BBQ sauce & seasoned fries!)
And on our morning drive home, we stopped for these delicious cinnamon rolls.... yummy!
San Luis Obispo - we love you! What a special place this town holds in our hearts - the place where Andrew & I first met, where we became such great friends, where we first held hands & started our relationship - and so much more!
