Mark and Dara's Wedding in Big Sur

After a great week at grandma and grandpa's place in New York Aki and I flew across the country to join our friends Mark and Dara who were planning to get married in Big Sur. Unfortunately a wildfire broke out a few days before the wedding ultimately expanding throughout the Los Padres National Forest and most of the Big Sur River watershed which Aki and I had hoped to explore. What came to be known as the Basin Complex Fire went through the ranch owned by Mark's family and the scheduled site for the wedding. Everyone pulled together and the wedding was moved to the Carmel Valley which Aki and I enjoyed immensely.

Flying in to San Jose we started to see wildfire and massive clouds of smoke to the south. Aki and I watched this fire from our plane.

We spent our first day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Aki had a great time at the touch tank.

The jellyfish tanks were a hit with Aki.

Watching "Mr. Ray".

Kid magnet: We camped at Dara's Grandmother's house in the Carmel Valley and the kids all enjoyed being together.

Dave on the grilling team cooking up dinner on Friday evening the day before the wedding.

Meanwhile Aki and Alder chased lizards over at the wood pile.

A lizard breaks free for a moment in the sun before he is discovered by the toddlers.

The guys waiting for the wedding ceremony to start.

Mark and Dara. Aki did pretty good through the ceremony although he did get hungry and kept asking when the party was going to start. He had to take a quick break halfway through to hunt down a carrot to nibble on.

The party underway. We enjoyed a beautiful dinner under the evening sky with a view over the Carmel Valley.

Aki showing Cassia how to use "his iPhone".

Mark and Dara cut the cake and enjoy the first bite.

On Sunday Aki and I went down to Big Sur to check out the action. Massive clouds of smoke billowed from the ridge above the town of Big Sur as crews fanned out to work on the fire lines.

We did find an informal fishing access along Highway 1 where we were able to get in the Big Sur River and splash around a bit.

We headed back up the coast and spent several hours at Point Lobos. I really enjoyed viewing the Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), a rare tree species endemic to this spot, although Aki was most interested in just running through the forest.

A green alga (Trentepohlia aurea v. polycarpa) that covers branches on the cypress trees and thrives on the fog and ocean mist. It derives its orange color from carotene.

Aki was of course most interested in something a little more active and we eventually found a little cove where Aki could bark at the seals and race the waves.

We ended up spending at least two hours at one spot on the rocks where Aki discovered an impressive population of hermit crabs.

Lining up hermit crabs on the rocks, Aki enjoyed watching them crawl around.

Things got even more interested when we captured a crab after several minutes of poking a piece of kelp down a narrow crack in the rocks. Aki was pretty excited to show this guy off to anyone who came by.