It All Started With Her...

Meet Maria, a longtime friend with the bluest eyes you will ever see:


Love her belly! She is 6 months pregnant, expecting her first!

One day about a year ago, Maria and I had taken ourselves out for high tea. 'Cause that's the kind of thing I like to do with my girlfriends every now and then.


There we were, sipping our champagne mimosas and eating our finger sandwiches when the subject turned to work, summer plans, camps for the kids, etc.  You know, the regular topics of conversation amongst gals. And right then and there I decided to share with Maria a little idea I had. A tiny little nugget of a thought about a trip idea I had....a cross country trip with the kids.  Over the course of the next few moments, the little idea I had began to take shape and grow into what has been dubbed around our house as the "MMA" or the "Manriquez Marvelous Adventure". Maria is a very smart woman and it is thanks to her encouragement that I continued to drive everyone around me crazy over the next year as I developed and talked incessantly about my plans for this trip!  And she and her husband Brandon have my gratitude as well for hosting the kids and I for the last two nights in San Jose while we have taken in the local sights.

One of the more spectacular seaside cities near San Jose is Monterrey.  This was our destination today--more specifically we spent the day visiting the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.  The aquarium lies at one end of Cannery Row right on the bay with views and access to the wildlife in and around the coast. In one word, it is stunning.

The aquarium itself is very neat and has a lot of hands-on activities for the kids to do. Mostly, I would say that they are known for all of their "touch" pools:

Holding Hermit crabs.
















Acting out a series of events whereby you can dam the water and see the results of the wave action on animals living at the shoreline.

Diego stayed at this activity for more than an hour. I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that there was a motor and water involved.


While he engineered, you can see what the other two were up to:

Fun Facts From Today:

Number of times a child asked me "Are we there yet?" = 6

Miles driven today: 145

Number of wrong turns = 0

Conversations Overheard in the Car:

Diego to me: "Mami, how much longer?"

Me: "20 minutes"

Diego: "I think my brain is damaged."

Me: "From what?"

Diego: "From all the waiting."

(FYI, the car ride today was only 1 hour, 10 minutes. Tomorrow's ride? 8 hours. I wonder how that will go over?).