California Trip: Part 3

After we left my Grandmother's, we traveled up the coast.  Tyler has always wanted to drive on the Pacific Coast Highway, so even though it was a longer drive, we thought it would be worth it.  And boy was it! It was so incredibly beautiful!  Here are some pictures of the drive. 

We later drove down to that road as climbed on those rocks. 

 Breath taking!

 Tyler and Sawyer are really small on the rocks above, but this is off the road from the earlier picture

 After the trip up the coast, we stopped at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  I have been to Monterey before but never got to go to the Aquarium. We got there only one hour before it closed, so we did a speed site seeing, but it was really cool. 

 Blurry, but a huge octopus

 Sea Turtle- love them!

The view from the back side of the Aquarium

We then stayed the night in Santa Cruz with Tyler's buddy Barnard over night.  (He was there for work, so it was lucky for us that Tyler could visit him).  The next day we headed up to San Francisco to see the Redwoods on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.   We forgot the camera for the Redwoods (I know, right? Tyler didn't hear the end of it, I promise) but we did get one picture of the Golden Gate Bridge!

After the redwoods, we hit the road again for our trip home.  We stopped in Reno for a all you can eat Lobster buffet at a casino and stayed the night.  The next day we drove to Provo to eat at Nicoitalians Pizza (Tyler and I's favorite Pizza place from when we were dating) and then stayed in Alpine with my friend Jessie and her family.  The last day we drove through Wyoming for the very last leg of our trip.  Right when we crossed the Colorado/Wyoming border, Sawyer decided he wasn't feeling well and threw up all over himself.  We pulled the car over, cleaned him up, and kept driving home.  Right as we passed the Broncos stadium, Tebow threw the pass that was run all the way down field to win the game against the Steelers.  This was the game the first game of the playoffs, so it was pretty exciting they had gotten that far. An hour and a half later, we were home.  The kids jumped in the bath and had a great time being out of the car.

Aren't they so stinkin' cute!

We immediately got thrown back into our crazy life and schedule but really enjoyed the time we had to get "away from it all".  Turns out the reason Sawyer was throwing up was because of all the congestion he had.  He then passed that sickness off to Brooklyn and mommy.  Brooklyn ended up getting her first cough and ear infection.  Poor little girl.

Not our usual happy baby.

After driving over 3000 miles in one week and then getting sick when we got home we still had a great time and felt it was worth it! I wish we could go back like tomorrow, but I'm afraid it will probably be a few years.  Next time maybe the kids will be big enough to go to Disneyland!

California Trip: Part 2

After leaving Southern California, we traveled up the coast a little to visit my 92 year old grandmother.  She lives in beautiful Grover Beach, CA.  This beach allows you to drive onto it and camp or have bonfires or whatever.  In fact, when we left the beach that night, I got our car stuck in the sand.  It was hard to see because it was getting dark, and I am obviously inexperienced driving on sand, and sure enough I got us so stuck someone had to come rescue us.  Oh well, lesson learned!

 The kids and I on Grover Beach

 Daddy and Sawyer playing in the water during sunset.

While we were visiting my Grandmother we went about an hour north of her house to see Hearst castle. On our drive up, we stopped in Cambria for lunch.  It has a beautiful park right on the beach that we ate at. 

Then we went and saw the elephant seals.  It is impossible to describe how this looked, but there were hundreds of them spread out all over the beach.  It was really cool to see. 

 We then went to Hearst castle.  What a beautiful place!  I wouldn't mind living there!

 Major selling point- the enormous pool!

 Oh, and an indoor pool also

That night we went to dinner with my Grandmother.  At the restaurant they have servers stand on chairs with blindfolds on and poor water into a glass on someones head.  It was funny to watch!

Here is my beautiful grandmother

 Can you believe she is 92?  I have great longevity in my family!

It was so great to see her.  I wish we could have stayed longer!

California Trip: Part 1

I have been dying to go to California for the past few years and finally had an opportunity to go, so we took it.  I used to live in Southern California as a nanny and I miss it soooo much!  My grandmother (my mother's mom) also lives there and I hadn't seen her in 6 or 7 years. She is 92 now and I really wanted to go see her.  The trip was so much fun.  Like any trip, we have a million pictures, so I will divide them over a few posts, but feel free to skip ahead to another post.  This is mostly just for our families sake. 

We left Colorado and drove straight to St. George, UT where my grandmother (on my dad's side) had recently moved to. It was really good to see her (even if she had only moved away a week before) and great to see her new place.  The next day we hit the road bright and early and traveled to California and stayed with one of my friends Rachel (love her!).  While we were in southern Cali, we took the opportunity to go to the San Diego Zoo.  

 Brooklyn all ready to go!

 Checking out the elephants

 The peacock was trying to find some lunch

 Sawyer playing hid-n-seek with the tree

 Sawyer was the pilot of the helicopter

We walked around the Zoo all day and Sawyer choose to walk the whole time.  He didn't want to ride in the stroller.  I was impressed that he could walk so much!  Even Tyler and I were sick of walking. He really loved the animals and had a great time. 

  The next day we went to Coronado Island with my friend Rachel, her husband Brandon, and their two kids, Gid and Stella.  This was the first our kids had ever been to the Ocean.  They loved it!

 Having fun with Daddy!

 Soooo pretty!

 Mmmm... sand tastes good!

I miss it already.  California is so beautiful and was such a nice change from the cold Colorado weather.  It was definitely strange seeing people walking around in shorts and tank tops in January.