California Adventures 2011

So we decided that before the baby arrives we should go on one more vacation. Originally we were thinking that we would go and visit Elly who is currently doing a study abroad in London, but as the time to book our tickets got closer, we realized that walking around sight seeing and being in places where comfort/nausea reducing foods might be slightly hard to find, might not be such a good idea. So we decided to take a trip up the California coast instead.

We flew from Utah to Sand Diego. This is a photo of us in front of the Hotel Del Coronado (on the beach). They had a great candy shop in the hotel!!!







It was great to see the pacific and play on the beach!










Here are some other pictures of things w did in San Diego. We got to see the USS Midway (aircraft carrier) parked in San Diego harbor and we also went to Sea World (I have a sneaking suspiscion that this isn't the original "Shamu"!)



Next we drove the L.A. The funniest part about our time in L.A. was how typical L.A. it really was. As soon as we got remotely close to the edge of the city we were stuck in a parking lot of traffic for the next few hours. During our first night there (at 4:30 AM) we were woken to the sound of screaming and yelling outside or hotel window. We look out to see a couple of cop cars pulled up on the sidewalk and a man being pinned to the ground! It was right out of the show "Cops." We only spent one full day in L.A. (which was more than enough). We went to Universal Studios and had a great time.Next we drove up the coast (about a 7 hour drive) along Highway 1. I was surprised with how unpopulated it was. It reminded me a lot of driving up the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand. Very rugged and windy. We stopped at a great little sea food restaurant for lunch and had shrimp!

Our lunch by the seaside that day was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
Next we stopped in Carmel, which is a white sandy beach town about two hours out of San Francisco. It was very european-esk and had a lot of little antique shops and galleries. Here is a picture of the cute little bed and breakfast we stayed in and a photo of us on the beach.


We ended our trip at Sue and Greg's place in Concord. We really enjoyed spending time with them and really appreciated them making an effort to plan fun activities with us (Tyler, Greg and Travis went golfing while Sue, Jen, Mya and me had a little baby shower). Travis also planned a fun out to an A's vs. New York Yankee's baseball game (which I had wanted to do since my family went when they visited for our wedding).