Natural Bridges State Beach- Butterflies and Tidepools

Ever since moving here I have wanted to go see this.  Seriously. It has been a goal of mine EVERY year.  But until now, I never had the chance to go with someone that knew where/what they were doing... and I didn't want to miss something. FINALLY, a wonderful girlfriend of mine organized a group to go up to this state park and see them.  The Monarch Butterflies migrate here every year to mate.  It is fascinating.  I love butterfly watching.  It's such a neat memory and I will never forget it.  And so that our kids will never forget it, I took a million photos.  All of which I will post now.  (ok- so I'll just post a few.)

We went down with a big group to see the butterflies in the morning- but there were NO butterflies!!! It was so disappointing. So we came right back to the picnic tables and had lunch.  I could've cried.  (Don't worry, we got to see some later.)

look at her cute, wet bum.  It took like 2 seconds for her to get wet- and it took 3 hrs to dry.

After the beach, I reeeeeally wanted to see the butterflies, so I made the kids get into new clothes (all dry!) and head back out to hike down to the butterfly resting spot.  They were troopers-We actually had the funnest time (which I was surprised about because the kids were really whining about walking more at first).  Since not as many people were around, and no other kids were running all over the place- it was so neat to tell the kids about being quiet and "sneaking up on the butterflies so they wouldn't scare away".  We read each sign on our way there- Addie read all of them and even sounded out the word "migration".  The kids were all interested in the signs and what they said.  Loved it.  So much cooler than the first time.

Here we are SNEEEEEAKING and SHOOOSHING everyone and everything the whole way down the pathway.

Sneaky... can you tell they are all tip-toeing?

I LOVE this pic.  I caught an elusive, nocturnal habit by Taylor.  When ever she sleeps, she turns her blankie around and around until she finds this certain corner- then she sucks on it and falls asleep sucking on it and her thumb.  So cute.  And kinda gross.  She was getting so tired. 

we spotted our first set of them on the trail.

I love this candid shot!

Ahh. At last we arrived. It was a big deck to serve as a watching area.  Since we were the only ones we quietly laid down and just looked up at the sky.  All the trees surrounding our heavenly view upwards were bustling with active, monarch butterflies!  They were really high up, but at least we got to see them.  The kid's quietness paid off.

Abigail is shooshing Taylor- and Tays would NOT have it.  (She was squealing at this point.)

I really should've fixed this in photoshop before posting, but I couldn't wait.  You can barely see the butterflies on the left side out from the edges of the trees.  Apparently the temperature was better up high that day, so that's where they all were.

Cool Huh?