One thing I wanted to do with my sabbatical was take each kid on a solo trip (or at least plan one out).

Eleanor wants to go see Trinity Library at Trinity in Dublin (so we will do that this summer when the weather is nicer).

Henry wanted to go to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Grant wanted to go to a combination arcade and trampoline park (he later thought bigger and threw in a hotel stay too).

During the kids’ Easter break I was able to knock out both trips with the boys!

California

Henry and I flew out of Detroit on Easter Sunday, into Atlanta. We hung out at the sky club and then onward to San Jose! We got in quite late (for us), so we got an Uber to our hotel (which was across the street from the hotel we stayed in, for the Tumblr meetup), and went to bed. In the morning we got up early (for California), had breakfast at the fancy hotel restaurant, and got an Uber to the car rental place at the airport. They gave us an electric mustang SUV, which was pretty fun to drive!

Once we had the car, we drove to Santa Clara, where my dad went to college. We wanted to walk around and visit the bookstore (unfortunately, the bookstore was closed for the holiday). It was a gorgeous day! Henry was shocked to see palm trees. Reader, this is far from his first visit to California.

From Santa Clara we continued our informal college tour and went to Stanford. Absolutely massive campus. I talked to one of the people I know through the COO course I took at the Stanford executive business school, and she gave me some good advice about what to do, where to park and so on.

We went to the top of the Hoover tower, and found out that it is simply stuffed with books and papers (from, get this, Hoover). We could see the whole campus! And San Francisco!

We found the library (by accident) and asked a very kind student where the bookstore was, then spent a loooong time there. On the way back, in the business school district, we saw this thing covering a wall, and Henry said “what is that?” And I said, “want to go see?” And he did, and we are so glad. It was this very cool sculpture installation.

We probably watched this for 20 minutes.

From there it was time for lunch. We went to a diner type place in Palo Alto, and had a terrific lunch.

Then we headed to Monterey! On the way we stopped in Santa Cruz and took a little hike to this tiny beach. It was awesome. Henry almost lost his shoe to the ocean, but was able to get it back.

From there we went to Monterey. We arranged to have dinner with my friend (and colleague) Marina, and while we were waiting for her, we went to visit a little park called Friendly Park.

On the walk back to the restaurant we actually ran right into Marina! So we all went together to the restaurant. It was Marina’s pick, and it was a good one. Fun, busy, delicious. I didn’t take a picture with Marina for some reason, but she got some of me and Henry! Henry also drew a taco robot.

After dinner we said goodbye to Marina, and went to our hotel. It was a block up from Cannery Row, and within walking distance of the aquarium. We checked in and went to check out the little beach right outside.

The next morning we went back out on a walk, heading to find some breakfast. Again, it was early for California, and that suited us just fine because it was aquarium day! We had breakfast together, then I had my workout while Henry played Roblox. After that we got lunch on our walk to the aquarium.

Then it was aquarium time!!! We loved it. Henry was telling me constantly how much he was enjoying it.

Highly recommend this aquarium!

Then we went all along Cannery Row, which was way busier during the afternoon than it had been at 7am. After that, we met my dad’s first cousin (and my godfather!), Lester, for dinner. It was fun catching up, and to see him use many of the same mannerisms as my dad.

The next day was go-home day. We got up early, went and got brekkies, and then it was time to head to the airport. We flew from San Jose to Salt Lake City, then on to Detroit.

We stayed overnight in Detroit and drove home the next morning. All in all, a really fantastic time with my oldest son! ❤️

Rochester

The day after the day we got back, it was Grant’s turn for some time with me! We drove to Rochester in the morning to a trampoline park / arcade. We bounced his lil heart out!

We had dinner, then went to our hotel. We snuggled and watched the Super Mario Bros movie together, then called it a night.

The next morning we got up and had hotel breakfast, then headed to the Museum of Play! Grant kept calling it the museum of fun. We haven’t been for a few years, and it’s been nicely upgraded. The first thing we did was go to the super kids market Wegmans. The name doesn’t roll off the tongue. Then we did literally everything else.

I didn’t take many photos – I was too busy helping Grant take care of stuffies, or race cars, or order food, or ride the train…you get the idea. The last thing we did was ride the carousel (Grant kept calling it the Ferris wheel). He really wanted to do “just one more fun thing”, but it was time to head home. It was great to spend one-on-one time with him, and he was so well behaved. ❤️

Getting to spend time with both my boys, separately, doing something they really wanted to do, and giving them my full attention was a real treat. I guess I know what I’m doing on my next sabbatical!