Sleepin' with the Fishes!

Prepare to be jealous. I'm sorry. I don't mean to gloat, but you really need to be prepared.

This weekend, we spent Saturday night at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And I do mean that we spent the night at the aquarium itself. As in, we slept by the Outer Bay tank, staring up at giant tuna and hammerhead sharks, and at 4:00a.m., I walked barefoot to the bathroom to pee as if I owned the place. Sunday morning, we even took a picture of the Girl naked in front of the tank when she was changing out of her jammies, just prove we slept there (of course, I'm not going to post such a picture, so, really, you still have to just take my word for it).

Apparently, the aquarium lets people do this. Usually, it's groups of scouts or something of that nature, but families can do it, too*. We are very lucky to have a friend who captains a sailboat that the aquarium contracts for it's sailing tours. And that friend got us in for free. So it was just their family and ours, sleepin' with the fishes. Well, and a large boy scout troup, but they were out of hearing range.

We also got a behind-the-scenes tour, and the next day, when all of the other aquarium "campers" had to leave, we got to stay. In fact, for about 20-30 minutes we were the only people (other than staff) in the place. I swear, I felt like we were breaking the law.

And all of this happened after we got to go on a sunset sail on the boat that our friend captains. Monterey Bay was calm and beautiful, and we even saw a basking shark, which is, apparently, quite rare these days. And there was wine, cheese, and cookies. And hubby got to help hoist the sail and steer the boat and, of course, now he wants one. But since this boat is a two-million dollar beauty (which my skipper friend does not own, of course), hubby will be getting no such thing. But I'll tell you what will be happening: The skipper and his wife will be getting a lot of date nights while we babysit their daughter. It was so nice of them to take us along for all of these perks.

It was a great weekend, except for this morning when hubs and the kids went in the motel hot tub and got gnarly chemical burns/rashes on their skin. The kids have red bumps and welts, and hub's leg and arm hair is now fine, blond, and slightly curled peach fuzz instead of straight, brown, and coarse man hair. When they arrived back at the room after swimming, the kids were crying and screaming because of the burning and stinging. Not the best way to end a great weekend. I'm hoping they'll remember the aquarium highlights more than the chemical burns.

*If you have the cash, I highly recommend a vacation to Monterey that includes the sleepover. It really is amazing. And while you're at it, take a sailing trip! And rent some kayaks. I just love Monterey, and fall is a great time of year to visit.