Harry's epic day of adventure

So, a few days ago, Harry told us all that he had an epic surprise planned for us this Saturday.  He dutifully kept it a secret until today at 11:40 (after he got back from Impact Day at church).  Then he told us we'd be going for a drive.  We packed some sandwiches and water bottles for lunch in the car and away we went.

First stop Marianne's Ice Cream Shop in Santa Cruz.  Marianne's is a cash-only, 55 year old, hole-in-the-wall ice cream place that just so happens to be FANTASTIC.  Harry had a double scoop of butter pecan, I had a single of blueberry cheesecake, the girls had bubblegum ice cream on cake cones, and Q had good old-fashioned vanilla bean.  : )

After ice cream, we hopped on over to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.  Now that was an experience!  I have never seen a carnival at the beach- because that is what it looked like to me!  The Boardwalk comes complete with roller coaster, funnel cakes, sno-cones, roll-a-rama, annual chili cook-off, lots and lots of sandy beach, and ocean for miles.  We walked around for an hour or so and took some photos.

THEN, we took a drive up the gorgeous, gorgeous coast.  And who knew that on the coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean is miles and miles of farmland?  So we stopped at a farm and bought some seriously good strawberries-- which we ate immediately. : )  Actually, Q ate most of them...


From the coast, we cut over on hwy 84 through a winding, twisting wooded area full of redwoods.  These things are huge!  It was pretty neat to see so many redwoods.  Now, these are not the famous redwoods found north of here, but they are still really tall!

And since we live across the San Francisco Bay just off of hwy 84, we took the Dumbarton Bridge over the Bay and back home.


It really was pretty epic.  : )

                  Santa Cruz Boardwalk                                      Marianne's Ice Cream (and one happy boy)