Cali Vacation

After working ourselves to tears, we decided we maybe needed a vacation! So I rounded up some of my travel points and we headed to California! I was so excited to go back with Alan and show him all of the places and things I loved when I lived there, it feels so much like home there for me! So I thought I would show you my favorite picture or two from each day.

Day 1-Santa Cruz

So we stopped on our way to Monterey in Santa Cruz to walk along the boardwalk and low and behold we found the biggest sand dollar I have ever seen as we walked under the pier! (You may be happy to know that it made it home in one piece.)

We then headed to Monterey, CA and hit up the wonderful aquarium there. Oh course stopping along hte way and the roadside fruit stands for some oh so tasty local produce. YUMM! My favorite exhibit at the aquarium is the jelly fish. I think it is just beautiful, and my pictures do not do it justice! But you get the idea.

We then had dinner at one of the local resturants and walked along the fisherman's warf. Nothing like the smell of fish, salt and kelp to finish off the evening! :)

Day 2- Monterey and Carmel

We suited up in our oh so sleek kayak gear and braved the waves, well, more like the wind, and spent the morning crusing around the bay. Those kayaks are pretty big and heavy on land, but it is amazing how small and insignificant you feell once you get on the water! Dodging sea lions and boats is quite exciting! I even saw a jelly fish as we were paddeling, and I was glad I was in my kayak.

We went into this cove and saw some seals with their pups, I thought they were so cute! Although not most agile creatures on land. This one moma seal totally kept giving us the eye, so we decided to move on.

We spent the rest of the day driving through Carmel and down the coast to Big Sur. I wanted to stop a take a picture like every 2 minutes, but the wind really picked up and made it quite hard to hold my camera still, not to mention freeze my fingers to it!

Day 3-Fresno

We slept in and then headed for Fresno to visit Alan's cousin Dawn and her family. Being the Type A planner that I am, I of course had already printed up Mapquest directions to all of the stops that I was not familiar with, but in this instance it was not very helpful! I swear we were driving in circles, and then one of the roads we were supposed to take was under construction and totally shut down...a few u-turns and a bit of "discussion" and we finally made it!

I realized after we left that I did not get any pictures taken, but I am totally going to blame that on Alan! :) We had dinner with the family and it was great to get to know them and to visit. Expecially the big screen tv that we watched American Idol on...I can't believe Brooke didn't get voted off!

Day 4/5-Back to SF area-No visit to San Francisco is complete without a visit to:

Golden Gate Bridge

Lombard St-People actually live on this street!

Fisherman's Wharf-Alan had fresh crab, what a time consuming meal!
The trolleys

Chinatown-After a stop at Sam Wu's for dinner ( a little dissappoing meal, but defintely part of the asian experience) and some site seeing, we ended up with a cool set of chop sticks.

North Beach-We hit the gelatto shops twice I think and tried almost every flavor that they had! So Good! We had dinner there one night to celebrate Alan's birthday with my friend Melissa! We ate atFigaro's and had dinner real Italian style with like 4 courses of food. It was a good thing we spent all day walking! My plan worked, in that Alan kept being reminded of Italy...and saying he wanted to go back and visit! :) I keep telling him to just say when and I am there! :)

We had such a good trip, and amazingly enough we were not totally exhausted by the time we got home. We were able to see many friends and family and to relax and ejoy time without phones or emails. I think the last time we were actually about to spend that much time together was our wedding, so for us this was a great week!

San Antonio Part II

Ok, so we did alot in one day....after Sea World we went to downtown and had dinner and took one of the tours along the RiverWalk, Undeniably the coolest thing in Texas I have seen so far!

River Walk Facts:

1. In some places the water is only 2 feet deep while in others it is over 20 feet deep.

2. The River gets drained yearly and the contents include strollers, wheelchairs and garbage, of course.

3. At least one cell phone is lost in the depths of the river everyday.

4. After 11 pm there is strong correlation between the amount of alcohol people consume and the number of people who fall into the river.

On Saturday we went for round Two at Sea World...which of course created the telltale markings of sunburn on each of us..especially seeing as we are all white as can be after a winter of no sun!

When then went to visit the ALAMO...I am sure I will get shot for this, but really the Alamo is not as big as you think it is going to be...and the history behind it is super sad, everyone dies!

But, as you can see, there are always lots of things for boys to play with at an old Fort!

We were also very lucky to catch the St Patrick's Day Parade, and I thought of my brother when I saw these guys. I can't wait to see him in his kilt! There is just something enchanting about bagpipes.

What do Shamu and air mattresses have in common?

Nothing, unless you go camping and visit Sea World!

After I came home from traveling Thursday and Alan finished his PAL tests, we loaded up the car and headed to San Antonio. Five and half hours and a lot of traffic later, we arrived at the San Antonio KOA. We were a bit sceptical as we got off the freeway and passed some ghetto business and industrial sites, but the campsite ended up being pretty nice. Especially seeing that it is like 10 minutes from downtown San Antonio.

We met up with our friends Jake and Maren and their little girl Tesa. We were pretty exhausted and it was pretty late so we set up our tent (good thing we practiced putting it up in our living room, since it was pretty dark!) We found out that my air mattress had been attacked by some bug that likes rubber so we had to buy a new one. Alan took care of that while I was out of town...it's a good thing we bought a big tent and brought an electric pump! It was super comfy!

The next morning our other friends Chris and Mindy and their two boys Cameron and Collin arrived and we headed to Sea World! I was excited since I had never been! The weather was so warm, and we had a good time. These are some of the pictures of the shows we saw. I always thought there were more animal tricks involved, but a lot of the shows were very choreographed and showcasing the people more.

If you look close you can see Alan! Just kidding, but I hear that this has always been his dream job!

We even got to feed the dolphins, talk about pampered mammals! I want their schedule, swim around in a tank, have people feed me every hour...

Alan's favorite was the huge indoor aquarium, he could have stayed in there all day and just watched the fish!

I really liked the penguins, again I wonder if they get bored. We stayed in the penguin room for a while to cool off, and some of those penguins didn't move at all!

Easter

I love Easter! I think that it only fitting that we celebrate the Resurrection of the Savior at a time of year that the Earth seems to be doing the same thing! The weather has been so nice, new grass is starting to sprout up, the trees are budding and of course my allergies are kickin in!

On Thursday during the day we (well, mostly Alan-cause I had to work) worked on some more home repair projects. With any luck, we will have everything just the way we want it before we move! For family home evening we took advantage of the weather to plant some new herbs, bulbs and perennials in our teeny, tiny yard.

On Friday we went to the Temple and we able to do the Endowment work for a brother and sister in my family. We hope to have the whole family ready to seal by July for Sarah's wedding.

We finished the evening off with some egg coloring/decorating. We had a ton of fun-we tried a new method of using rubber bands to "tie-dye" our eggs and have decided this will be an often used method-but WARNING: rubberbands stretched too tight will either break and send dye shooting in multiple directions or fling into a neighboring dye cup and then send more dye splashing!
It is a good thing one of our little "home projects" is to re-finish the dining room table, and our freshly painted walls were easy to wipe off! Alan's sleeve to his sweathirt did not fare as well, nor our tax return that was sitting on the corner of the table! Can you imagine the look on that accountants face when he sees our form! :)


I guess you are never too old to enjoy a good egg coloring session!

Easter Sunday after church we went to have dinner at my Nana's relatives house in Richardson. It was fun to meet my Great Aunt Jo's family. Especially those who actually remember meeting me when I was about 9 months old.

Pictures of Aunt Jo's family to follow....