More Christmas in San Diego

Here is us at the Wild Animal Park in Escondido, just 20 minutes from my parents' house.

Here are Justin & Chase with my college girlfriend's kids, Malia & Gabby.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Legoland California in Carlsbad. The boys rode their first official rollercoaster called the Dragon, got their drivers licenses at the Lego Volvo driving school and built and raced their own Lego cars.

These are some shot of Solana Beach, just south of Encinitas where my girlfriend & her family live.

And this is my collage girlfriend (Cheeba, aka Christina) with her family & our family in their home in Encinitas.

Christmas in San Diego

I have finally gone through the pictures from the San Diego part of our California trip and am ready to post. Should I post a lot of pictures? Do a collage? Make a slideshow? Hmmmm.... still undecided. While I'm thinking about the pictures, I will fill you in on the highlights of our trip...

The kids had an absolute blast just playing together. They are all between 1-2 years apart in age. Justin is 7, Carter turns 6 on March 1, Chase is 4, Cassidy is 3, Chloe is 15 months and Carly is 7 months. They are all so much fun! We hung out at my parents' house a lot, relaxing, playing hide-n-seek and getting ready for Christmas so they really got to spend some quality time with one another.

We also went to a couple local parks to let the kids burn off some energy, visited the Wild Animal Park (where we happen to see one of my college girlfriends & her two daughters), spent a day at Legoland and had a birthday party for Jesus. Then we wrapped up the trip by driving out to the beach to see another one of my college girlfriends, Cheeba, her husband Steve, her daughter Mary Ella and her 3-week old daughter Sophia.

It's always nice to catch up with old friends, but the best part is being with my family.

Well, I think the best thing is to post some pictures separately, but some in collages, so here we go...

Here are pics of all the older cousins. Carter & Justin get along great and love playing on the computers. Cassidy & Chase have a fun time just running around.

Here are a couple pictures of Chloe, aka Bizzo. She is so sweet and I have to say that I think she looks a lot like me when I was her age.

It looks like Carly wore the same thing everyday, but I swear she didn't!

California Beaches

Don't get me wrong, I love Florida beaches for their nice sand and warm water (Ponce Inlet is one of our favorites), but there is nothing like a California Beach sunset...

Here is Justin in Avila Beach, just 5 mintues south of San Luis Obispo. It's a fairly small beach town with a few pedestrian-only blocks right along the ocean, a nice oceanfront playground and a handful of good restaurants. This is the place where my family gathered to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary three years ago. We also used to come here a lot to eat yummy eggs benedict at a restaurant called The Custom House. Isn't it funny how our fondest memories can be of food???

Then we drove about 5 more minutes south to Pismo Beach, where Roger & I lived as newlyweds. The beach is awesome... it's really wide & long and there are neat caves and tidepools toward one end. Even though it was cold, we had fun exploring, poking sea anemones and searching for crabs. Too bad the water is too cold to swim in for most of the year (according to me anyway).

California!

I finally downloaded and reviewed the hundreds of pictures we took on our Christmas trip to California and narrowed it down to some of my favorites. We had such a great time... it's a beautiful state and nothing is better than being with family!!!

Here is us outside the airport EARLY in the morning. I don't know what I was thinking when I booked the tickets, but our plane left at 7 am, so we had to wake the kids up a little before 5 am to make sure we got there in time. Everyone always warns of "holiday travel crowds", but it really wasnt' that bad. We got there in plenty of time to play, eat breakfast and go pee before boarding the plane. We flew 4 1/2 hours to Salt Lake City, then had a 1 hour layover before a 1 1/2 hour flight on a "puddle jumper" to San Luis Obispo. The kids did great on the planes and in the airports. They like seeing all the action!

Total travel time from waking up to arriving at our hotel was about 12 hours!!!! Needless to say, the kids were a bit tired, but quite wired at the same time, so this is what was going on it our hotel room. Lots of pillow fights, pillow diving, jumping between the beds, etc. Fun for them, but probably not for the people in the room below us!

We spent most of the next day exploring San Luis Obispo, where I went to college (at California Polytechnic State University), where Roger & I met at Arcada Software and where Justin was eventually born. It's a really cute college town nestled between the Pacific Ocean and lots of vineyard-laden hills. SLO, as it's also called, has a fairly large downtown area with restaurants, unique shops, a big farmers market on Thursday nights, "Bubblegum Alley" where everyone sticks their chewed up gum and a creek that runs right through the middle of town. We ate at our favorite restaurants, explored the creek, got coffee at Peet's (our favorite!), ran into some friends and purused some shops, old & new.

The next day, we paid a visit to my old boss, his wife & kids. It was one of those times that you plan on saying hello for 5 or 10 minutes and end up staying for 2 hours. It was nice to catch up and see how their kids have grown -- one is in high school and the other his first year of college. They entertained the boys nicely with the game "Rock Band" on XBox 360, which the boys loved. After our visit, we headed to a local park to play for a while before making our way down the coast (stopping at a couple beaches) to San Diego where my parents live. The boys enjoyed playing on the playground, following a small creek and throwing lots of leaves.

I'll finish up this post and start again later with some beach pictures...