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...