Spring Break in Cali

For Spring Break this year we took a trip to Northern California, to visit my sister Nicole, and her family.  We left on Friday afternoon, and drove as far as Reno.  Dustin got up early with the older 3 kids the next morning and went to do Baptisms for the Dead at the Reno temple.  The kids thought the mini temple was so cute and they decided that it is their favorite.  We walked around Reno Main Street, and had to eat at one of Avery's friend's favorite restaurants, Raising Canes.  Everyone like it, so that was a win!

 We raced to California, and made it to the Jelly Belly Factory for their last tour of the day.  We had lots of fun tasting strange jelly belly flavors, and seeing how they are made.  And, our "free" tour was well paid for in all the souvenirs we bought at the gift shop.  I don't really even like jelly beans, but I think I ate my weight in jelly belly's this trip!

 We made it to Nicole and Matt's house that evening.  We love visiting family!  After church on Sunday, we went to Henry Cowell State Park and walked around.  There are many huge redwood trees, including some that we could even walk into!  We saw 25 banana slugs, which felt like something to be proud of, and had a beautiful drive home, loving all the California scenery.

 We are mostly sure that we probably didn't run over any newts on our drive.

 The next morning, we loaded up with Nicole and Matt's family, and took a drive south on Highway 1, towards Big Sur.  This was such a beautiful drive!  We stopped at multiple spots to see waterfalls or beaches.  We spent some time in Monterey Bay, eating and riding bike carts (they have a name, if I could just remember what it was).  We had lots of fun racing each other on the bike-thingy's, until Ryan somehow got his foot caught in the back wheel.  Luckily, he was fine, just bruised for a couple of days.

 After we left Monterey Bay, we stopped at Sand Dollar Beach (incorrectly named, there wasn't any) and played until we were freezing, and then we went on to Morro Bay and stayed the night in a hotel.  Morro Bay ended up being a really fun area to play the next day.  The beach was nice, the waves were fun, the food was great.  We spent way too much money on salt water taffy and ice cream at their cute little shops.

After spending most of the day in Morro Bay, we left and found another beach to go see.  This one was my favorite of all the beaches we went to in California.  It had many tide pools, which was cool, and the sand was not really sand, but more like tiny rocks and shells.  I ended up bringing a bucket home for a preschool sensory bin, because it was so much fun to play with!  We drove back to Nicole's house that night.

The next morning, bright and early, we got up and headed north to San Francisco.  We had an Alcatraz tour for 9:30, and it took a miracle (literally) for us to make it there on time with all the rush hour traffic.  But we made it!

 After Alcatraz, we spent the day walking around San Francisco.  Our favorites were an old arcade, a left-handed store for Grant, the harbor seals at Pier 39, and the Mirror Maze.  Oh, and some delicious (and expensive) ice cream and chocolates at Ghiradelli Square.

 The next day we got up and went to San Francisco for Day 2, but this time we brought Nicole and her girls along.  We explored China Town (including seeing fortune cookies being made and putting our own fortunes in a cookie), played at a park and visited an old church, and then Nicole headed home for nap time, while our family drove down Lombard Street (a number of times, with a number of drivers--even Avery!).

 We drove back and forth on the Golden Gate Bridge, and we walked across half of it.  We also stood in line for a very long time to be able to say we've ridden the trolley car.

 

 And then, after walking for what felt like miles, we made it back to our car, only to find that the battery was completely dead.  A couple of nice people stopped and tried to jump it for us, but eventually, it had to be towed back to San Jose, where Nicole and Matt live.  Matt came and rescued us.  We were tired, cold and grateful.

 While our van was getting fixed, we borrowed Matt's car and drove to Santa Cruz (lots of beaches this trip!).  We went to the Mystery Spot first, and then on to the beach to see Natural Bridges.

We felt blessed that our van was relatively cheap to fix (the cost of a battery, plus that ridiculously long tow), and that we had family close by who could come and help us while we were stuck.  With our van now fixed, we headed back to Utah the next day, listening to our living prophets while we drove (General Conference).  We made it back with perfect timing for Grant's appendicitis, which was another blessing.  It was so much fun to be in California with Nicole and Matt and their girls.  They were wonderful hosts and our kids loved playing with their little cousins.  They were super nice to let us crash their house for a week, and show us around their beautiful area.  We love our family!