Loving the California sunshine

Warning....LOTS of pictures!

Both Jon and my brother Steve have been selling down in California for APX...I mean vivent (new name) for the last several months..it's pre-season stuff to get them ready to kill it during the summer. Cami & I have been home a lot by ourselves living the life as single moms. Not so fun! So when the opportunity came to take a trip down to So Cal and visit the guys we jumped on it. The company moved them to Onatario for a week from Bakersfield so w/ a safer location for us the guys said come on down. So Cam, 3 kids, and I road tripped it down there stopping for a night in Vegas to see Kat. (thanks for putting us up!) We got into Ontario on a Thursday and had the whole weekend to hang out there. The weather was pretty stinken crummy for Cali but we made the most of it. We went to the outlet malls, drove the the coast and along the PCH, and visited some of Jon and my old stomping grounds. I got to see my great friends Piper and Erin and we even visited our old South Coast ward (best ward in the world) on Sunday. We loved it!

While we were planning our little vaca, Jon kept demanding we go to Disneyland...it's pretty much his favorite place ever. We scored park hopper tickets for $55 from a hook up of my sisters (let me know if anyone is planning a trip & we'll give you their info) and were so excited to go. Well Jon was sick pretty much that whole week before and ended up being too sick on Monday to even go to Disneyland. I was going to stay home w/ him but realized Brenton & I being stuck in the hotel all day wouldn't exactly help Jon sleep and recover like he needed... so we ended up going w/ Steve and Cam. Poor Jon!! He is still so bummed he missed out. Brenton is just getting to the age where he loves the characters and kept saying, "I wanna see Mickey Mouse!" So cute. He talks about Mickey all the time now.

Cam & I unknowingly bought our little guys the same sweatshirt that was clearanced at Target.

Bella was in Heaven w/ all the Disney princesses!

So Monday was Disney and Tuesday we left So Cal for a trip up the coast to San Fran. (My brother Steve had an interview in San Fran w/ a representative from Oxford University.) On our way up we stopped off in Monterey for 2 days. We had only planned on staying there one day, but once we got there and saw how beautiful it was, we knew one day wouldn't be enough. The views were absolutely gorgeous. We took the 17 mile drive along the coast, we walked on the pier and ate sea-food. We barked w/ the sea lions, and took tons and tons of pics! Oh it was heaven. I think Monterey could be one of most beautiful cities in the US. Take me back now!!

You may thing all those grey things in the back-ground are rocks, but a lot of them were actually sea lions.

This is at Pebble Beach. Umm..did I mention how gorgeous it was? Ha! The pictures really don't do it justice!

My man loves his seafood!

I never did get to see just how these fatties got up on the dock...would seem to be a bit of a challenge, but there were definitely tons up there.

This is Bella's first hat...shortly after the pic was taken it flew off in the wind to the ocean 40 feet below us. Don't worry, it was replaced! :)

From Monterey we made our way up the coast, stopping in Santa Cruz to walk the board walk, the warf, and to see the red woods.

And here they are in all their glory! It was my first time seeing the red woods...they were amazingly huge. We had such a fun time walking around and staring up high in the sky to see the tops.


This was the largest one in that particular forest. As tall as the Statue of Liberty and by the pic you can see how stinken wide it is!
And finally, we made it to San Fran! We had 2 days to see the city. The first day we spent on the outskirts viewing the golden gate and then looking for tide pools along the coast.

Yes, we saw the sign, and yes we ignored it (this will probably be a great story to tell the youth sometime at church...not heeding the signs) Well this is how the story goes. Steve had apparently been to this place 10 years ago when he lived near and said it was so cool we had to see it. So we walked around the sign and started our descent down to the ocean where these awesome tide pools were. We got down as far as we could and realized to get down to the bottom we would have to shimmy down the side of a cliff. You would think this would deter us from going... Steve didn't think twice. He started off to find a way down with Jon right behind him. They were half way down the drop off when a forest ranger yelled at us from up above and told us to cease and assist. Busted! He escorted us back up and told us it was really dangerous down there. Luckily he didn't fine us! He did however, guide us to some other tide pools that were in a safer area. Can you just see us now trying to scale the side of a cliff w/ 2 kids and a baby...oh man, what were they thinking?

These were the bunkers built during WWII.

And finally we found the "safer" tide pools!

Of yes! We ate lunch at MY VERY OWN DINER! (nope, not the beer zone)

Such a fun trip w/ some very fond memories. And the best part was my bro dominated his interview and has been accepted into Oxford. They are prepping for their journey there this fall. YA STEVE!!!!