California Trip

In January, Amelia and I were lucky enough to fly out to California to hang out with my sister Megan and her family.  It was her Christmas present!  I know, more of a present to me so I hope she liked it too!

I was really nervous about Amelia on the plane but she seriously did awesome.  It took a while for her to warm-up to everyone despite to beautiful, sunny, warm weather in Vacaville but eventually she did....sort-of!  

I flew in on a Thursday and we were off the very next day to visit Monterey and Carmel.  I wish wish wish we could have spent more time there but that just leaves more for us to do when we go back (because I've already decided we'll have to go back, maybe this summer?).  It's a 2.5 to 3 hour drive depending on traffic (lets be honest, it's the bay area, is there ever no traffic?!)  We stayed at on an army base which I felt was just a great location.  It was just down the street a little bit from Cannery Row and Dennis the Menace State Park.  Friday night we headed down to Cannery Row to eat at Bubba Gumps Shrimp.  It was late, so we didn't look around too much but I did spot a delicious looking bakery just around the corner that I just might return to someday!  Back to the hotel and some very much needed sleep for Amelia!

Saturday morning, we got up and headed straight to Dennis the Menace State Park.  Now, I was born in Monterey, but I was young when we moved away so I don't really remember it at all.  However, I've heard thousands of stories about Dennis the Menace Park and I've always kind of felt sad that I never really got a chance to play in it so I jumped at the chance.  I must agree, it really is a cool park.  It's so big and there's so many places to play.  And, we totally lucked out because it was 70 degrees in January there!  Just outside the park we enjoyed some snowcones and pixie sticks.  Just the ting kids need to hop in the car and start driving right?

Ben

Hoopes Family

Pixie sticks!

Emily and her snow cone

A little bit of a sugar high?

After the park, we took the 17 mile drive.  It's beautiful.  We stopped at the first beach we saw and walked around a bit.  Amelia got a taste for exploring and was a little difficult at every stop we made afterwards but still, she loved it.  She liked digging in the sand and playing in the tide pools.  She wasn't afraid at all to pick up anything she found - good or bad, you take your pick!

This tree is called the lone cypress.  We stopped to take a picture - my camera doesn't really do it justice but even if I had a really nice one, I probably still wouldn't do scenery pictures justice!  But still, you get the idea, it's just one cypress tree all alone!  My mom had a necklace of this tree that she used to where all the time so we had to get a picture of it.

We also headed out to Pt. Lobos State park.  It was the most ideal time to go - not only was it 70 degrees, it was whale season!  As we hiked along the path, all we had to do was look out into the water.  It wasn't hard to see a whale spouting out there.  They were all over the place.  We also saw sea otters floating and clear out in the distance we saw sea lions on the rocks.  Pt. Lobos is a beautiful place to hike along.  We stayed until sunset watching the waves crash in (this wave was where some crazy lady got hit by a wave and luckily just got pushed into the rocks and not sucked into the sea), playing in the dirt and throwing rocks into the sea.  Josh found a sea slug which he gladly picked up to show everyone!

 

Then we started the long drive home again but now without dropping by our old house in Ft. Ord.  Unfortunately, it was so dark by the time we got there, we didn't get a picture of it.

Here are some other random shots of the trip to Vacaville.  We hiked around the lagoon - there are so many geese and they are absolutely HUGE!  We fed them some bread before heading to the top of the lagoon hill.

We hung out at home and played with their bunnies - Dark Knight and Twilight.  Millie loved the bunnies.  She really liked to feed them.

Millie and Abby spend some time outside playing on bikes and scooters.