C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A

WARNING---- TONS OF PICTURES AND A LONG POST!!

The whole reason for the trip was so that Jack and Ella could meet their Great Grandparents and so Ella could meet who she was named after. This is Ella with Grandma Ella who is 89. I didn't get a good picture with Great Grandpa Walter but he is 90 and he and Ella have been married for 71 years!!!


Nothing like picking your nose to pass the time while waiting in line to ride Thomas the train!



Ella was worn out and enjoyed a quick nap at Six Flags!








So I trudged us all over the San Francisco pier because I wanted my kids to be able to eat at the Rain Forest cafe. It was a NO GO! This was literally 3 seconds after we walked in and Jack was FREAKING OUT and Ella was hanging onto Grandpa for dear life. I had to kindly tell the hostess never mind because there was no way my children were going to sit down and eat anything here!! I do want to try again in a couple of years because it looked really fun and I was a little bummed we didn't get to eat here!

Jack going over the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz in the background.

Taylor was a good sport and went swimming with Jack whenever he pleased! We couldn't have done the trip without her!






They were also terrified of this gigantic statue of a prospector. Although he hated it at the time and wouldn't get too close Jack wants to talk about it all the time now!

So we have been unbelievably spoiled this summer already and my parents took the kids and I on vacation to California last week. We got the new mini-van and figured we ought to put it to good use. (Actually on a side note- the dealership messed up on getting our license plates on time so we actually were provided a free rental for 10 days and saved putting any miles on our van! It was great because we put almost 3,000 miles on the rental in those 10 days!) But back to the vacation... I felt a little guilty about running off and leaving Ryan home.... but not guilty enough to pass on going on vacation and besides... somebody has to stay home and make the cha-ching! I was a little concerned how everything would work out with the kids but they did such a great job and are great little travelers! We went to Lake Tahoe, Sacramento and San Francisco and of course stopped in a lot of other places along the way. Jack had a wonderful time in "Tahoe Lake" although it was cold and windy he still got in the water a bit and loved digging in the sand. His absolute favorite part of the trip was our stop at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom outside of San Francisco. It is an amusement park and zoo and I was anxious to see how much of a scaredy cat he would actually be. He and Ella both surprised me and LOVED going on all the rides and were so BRAVE! Seriously I thought it was not going to go well because he's usually pretty timid about these sorts of things but he had NO fear and couldn't wait to find the next ride. Ella is still not walking but in order to go on the rides she had to show the operators that she could walk. Luckily she was so anxious to get over to the rides that she would just take off walking towards them. She fooled all of them that she could actually walk and she LOVED going on the rides with her brother. She looked so funny on them because she is so little but she was enjoying herself so much! After spending the entire day at Six Flags we went home exhausted. Later that night we went to a Farmers Market and got some deliciously fresh fruit and had a great dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. The kids slept WELL that night and first thing Jack declared when his eyes opened the next day was that he wanted to go back to SIXXX FLAGSSS (You should hear him say it with his lisp... it's great!)
We had a great but short time in San Francisco and we checked out the piers and Jack and Grandpa decided to tour a huge ship. It was HUGE and they looked so tiny on it once they made it to the top. Apparently this ship was used in the making of Titanic the engine rooms were used in the engine scenes of the movie. Funny thing happened while we were waiting on the pier for Lee and Jack. Rosie was taking our pictures (Ella and I) and she is not very technology savy so I was trying to tell her how to do it. Taylor let go of the stroller to come help her and just as she did a huge gust of wind came by and the stroller took off down the pier headed straight off the dock into the ocean. I started screaming, picked up Ella and took off after it. (Just a note- My nice camera and my entire diaper bag/purse were hanging on afor-mentioned EXPENSIVE stroller.) Luckily...Luckily...Luckily the stroller finally hit a little rut in the pier and it stopped dead in its tracks. I was so relieved because I was very close to having to take a swim in the San Francisco bay to retrieve my things!! Jack loved seeing the Golden Gate bridge and will tell you that it's HUGE! Since we traveled around so much we stayed at a different hotel every night and every morning after leaving our hotel Jack couldn't wait to see what his next Hotel-O looked like. We had some great hotels with some great swimming pools that we took full advantage of. Before leaving although we were almost out of time Grandpa Lee insisted that Jack had to visit the Sacramento train museum. I am so glad we were able to squeeze it in because he loved it so much! It was really interesting for me as well and Jack and I have had countless conversations already about what we saw at the museum. Our favorite was the train car that you could walk through and it had motion and sound effects so it felt like you were really on a train. It was really cool and we had to go through it several times! We had an absolutely wonderful time and I may or may not have slipped a slight dosage of Benadryl to the kids that helped ensure the ride home was great and indeed it was and we were home before we knew it. Since we have been home I have heard about 50 times that (in very whiney tone)"I want to do something fun...." we may have a hard time adjusting back to our mundane boring lifestyle!