Our Vacation

We're home from our vacation in California. Everyone had a great time!

We arrived Weds night, so we could surprise Grandma at the airport on Thursday morning. Grandpa knew we were coming, but for Grandma & Auntie Michie it was a complete surprise! After the airport, while the grandparents had a nap and settled in at another Auntie's home (we also stayed with an Auntie), we visited a nice park with play equipment, a climbing boulder. The boys played, climbed, took pictures (see my 365 blog) and just relaxed. It was wonderful to spend a day together, out of the car, after two days on the road.

Friday, we went into San Francisco after breakfast, where we saw Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, Alcatraz (no tours, just across the bay), sea lions and sea gulls, ferry boats, a submarine, lots of sailboats. We visited and toured Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum -- very fun and stranger than I ever imagined. We drove up some very steep streets, and down the same very steep streets. The downhills made me nervous, which thoroughly entertained the boys. We drove down Lombard Street, billed as the crookedest street in America. We stopped in at a chocolate store where the boys bought some great candy, and we all just enjoyed looking at the candies and gifts.

Saturday, we visited Santa Cruz for the beach, at the end of a wonderful drive through the mountains on a shaded, winding road. Andy spent 3 hours in the water, Dan alternated between water and sand.
On Sunday, we visited a shoreline park in Mountain View where Grandpa rented a pedal boat for the four of us to use for an hour, which was lots of fun, too.

We had a great time. Every day and night included wonderful meals -- Japanese potluck, spam musubi, namasu (salad), sushi, kalua pork and more. We ate out at a wonderful Chinese restaurant, and finished the weekend with pizza, spaghetti and salad (wonderful Vietnamese salad, too) and birthday cake for Grandma's 80th birthday (a couple of weeks early).

Through it all, the boys were wonderfully fun and conversant and friendly and just amazing!

We're back home now, and very happy to be here. I still need to do some housekeeping and am so looking forward to my daily walk with my dog! Only after some grocery shopping and a visit to swim with friends first, tho.