Disneyland and San Diego Zoo

So, okay, it's been longer than I thought it would be.  We moved faster from the last place, so I didn't have the time I thought I would.  Anyway...

On Sunday, January 6th, Mario drove down to Mexico to talk with a hotel about Skyware.  Ryan, the teenager that he is chose to stay back in the RV while the rest of us (me, Michael, Genny, and Jason) spent the entire day in Disneyland.  We had a really great time and it wasn't very busy, so by lunchtime we had gone on everything we had wanted to, and then we split up to do repeats. 

 Having been to Disney World so many times, I really loved the Matterhorn and Star Tours, which I've found out they now have at Hollywood Studios too.  Look closely here on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and you can see Genny, Jason, and Michael in the first row of the second car.

 It was the last day that the holiday decorations were out, and I really liked what they did with It's a Small World.  Particularly because they played Jingle Bells in addition to the Small World song, so it wasn't quite so repetitious.

Later in the week we went to a taping of Wheel of Fortune, we were sitting in the center for most of the taping.  They got some really nice footage of the kids (Mario and I are on the far end).  They have it air on three different dates, the first is tomorrow, Thursday February 14th, then Friday, February 15th, and the third day is Monday, April 29th (go figure that one out!)
   
    So be sure to watch for us tomorrow!!


On Saturday, January 12th, the six of us went to the other Disneyland park, California Adventure, which is kind of a combination between Epcot and Hollywood Studios.  So here's the New York City street scene, where we had to get  a photo of the kids.

 They had just opened Cars Land, it featured a ride called Radiator Springs Racers, which was awesome!  Unfortunately by the time we realized how popular it was, the earliest FastPass was for 8:30PM (we got it at 10am) !!  so we only got to go on it once.  Genny, Michael, and I had a great time.

On the following Monday (the 14th) we left Anaheim and moved on to Chula Vista, just south of San Diego.  We stayed at a great park, that we would really like to go back to.  Another of the things I really wanted to see on this trip was the San Diego Zoo.  We lucked out, because they had a new panda born just six months ago, and they had it out for view.  You had to be in line by 11:30am, though, and we found out about it at 11:20, thankfully we were right around the corner, and just made it in line (I think there may have been 10 people behind us)!

 After seeing the Pandas (he was playing with Mom), we stopped to get some lunch.  Then we got on a tour bus that took us around the zoo.  After walking around all morning, we really enjoyed the ride.  We got to see quite a bit of the park, and many of the animals.

We had a really good time, and it was well worth the time.  On January 20th we left Chula Vista for the Palm Springs area, where I did training at a new hotel of ours, the Horizon Hotel.  It's a really nice property built in the fifties.


 After a few days there we went to Las Vegas, for a few nights spread out in a hotel - the NYNY hotel right on the strip.  More about that next time!

New Year's and LA

Okay, so I know this is LONG overdue, so I'm going to do my best to get us caught up over the next week or so. 

 We had an early evening on New Year's Eve, to get up early for the Rose Parade.  It was a beautiful day and we bought tickets in the stands. 

 The floats were really awesome, and we had a great view.  There was a B2 bomber fly over that was so cool!  Ryan even got a picture of it, but it was too fast for me! I personally loved watching all the marching bands.

While we were in the LA area I couldn't resist taking Genny to the American Girl doll store for tea.  It was so nice, they did a wonderful job, and we got some quality girl time together.  At the tea they had conversation starters so we had lots of fun answering questions like, "What was one of you favorite childhood memories?" and "What food would you never give up eating?"  It gave us lots to talk about, and we even found out a few things about each other.

The trip to LA wouldn't be complete without a trip to Hollywood and the Walk of Fame. We saw lots of stars...on the sidewalk!  Michael liked the enormous macaroni from Kraft.  We also had the opportunity to go see a taping of Wheel of Fortune.  We were in the center of the audience, and the filmed us for audience pictures.  You can look for us on February 14th, 15th, and April 29th (they split up the filming so it doesn't look like the same audience).  Please don't worry about the absence of Ryan from these photos, he's been a bit camera shy lately, but I'll have him in some for next time.  So, next up is Disneyland, I promise!  Maybe I'll also get to Chula Vista and the San Diego zoo.  We got to see the new baby panda - just six months old!

Big Bear for Christmas

We dropped the RV off at an RV Service Center, and drove the CR-V up to Big Bear.  There is no way we would have been able to get the RV up there!  maybe during the summer, but the snow showed up at about 5,000 ft, and we were staying at about 7,500 ft!  By the time we drove up the street where the house was, the road was covered.  The kids had  a great time sledding, thankfully the house had a good selection of sleds.

 

 On the day after Christmas we got 4" of fresh powder, that made everything look so peaceful!

The house was really great, it had a very cozy living room.  We were able to find a tree, and I brought some ornaments with us, so we were all set as far as that goes.

 

Genny gets a fresh baked Ginger Cookie - yummy! Mario is convinced we need to get a wood stove like the one here.  It kept the entire house comfy cozy warm.

 

 Christmas morning before the opening of presents, don't they look so excited - not like they're tired at all, getting me up before 7am!!










Michael with his new train, this was before he set it up under the tree! 

The trip back down the mountain, beautiful snow in the trees.

From here we went to Anaheim, where we spent nearly three weeks.  We had a great time there, and the kids really got comfortable riding around.  I'll have more about the Rose Parade and Disneyland next time!

Pismo Beach

In Pismo Beach we stayed at an RV park that was right on the beach.  It was a really nice campground, and the sunsets were amazing!  

The kids once again found all the good places to bike to.  They've all been biking a lot, and are getting more comfortable finding their own way around.  Of course, they always wear helmets, go in groups and have a cell phone with them.

For Hanukkah, on two of the nights, they got gift cards to Starbucks and Subway, and they really enjoyed the opportunity to go out for lunch on their own!

Thanks so much to the Phillips family for our RV menorah, a little bit more secure with the flames contained!

From Pismo Beach we moved on to Bakersfield, to a campground that we had stayed at on our 2008 trip.  It has a restaurant that is well known in the Bakersfield community, and one of very few where there are regulars that come to it from outside the campground.  Mario and I had a great dinner out there, and spent a few cocktail hours chatting with the locals.  Mario also really enjoyed the hot tub they had there after his run! 

We moved to Malibu Beach after Bakersfield, and had a site overlooking the ocean,

...which led to some more beautiful sunsets.

While we were there we also got to see a group of dolphins swimming by. 

Malibu had some great shopping, which was good since Christmas was fast approaching.  We left Malibu on  Sunday, the 23rd to go up to Big Bear, more on that soon...

Watsonville and Monterey

Okay, so I've been bad again...I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post, but the holidays got in my way (I know, it's no excuse)

When I last posted, we were in Watsonville, at a charming little town campground.  Pinto Lake Park had  a nice lake, a playground, and a baseball diamond.  We had a couple of fun games while we were there.

Baseball was fun, and on Saturday (Dec 8th), we went into Monterey and wandered around.  There's a large park in the center that was created by Dennis the Menace creator, Hank Ketcham.

The Dolphin statue was down by the bay, the lion water fountain was in the park.

On Sunday, we wandered down highway 1, along the coast of California.  It was a beautiful drive, and we even saw a pod of whales off the coast as we were driving.  Some beautiful coast photos, with seals too.

 The whales were a bit hard to see, but the spouts were unmistakable.

We also got a nice glimpse of Hearst Castle.

Next up is Pismo Beach, and Hanukkah, I'll try to get that in tomorrow...

San Francisco!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we were able to go into San Francisco to see the sights.  On Saturday we drove in, and stopped first at the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a beautiful day, and we had wonderful views.  It also meant that everyone else was out!  We lucked out and found someone pulling out of a parking spot that no one else was waiting for.   Great picture, huh?

We had a map that had a 49 mile rout on it, which we followed to some extent.  Unfortunately I wasn't thinking about routing, and had the stops mixed up a bit.  We wound up trying to go to many of the spots in reverse order, which would have been fine, except that there are a lot a one way streets that we were trying to go the wrong way on!  Oh well, we had a nice drive around anyway.

On Sunday we walked to the Larkspur Ferry, about a mile from the campground, and took it in to the city.  it was a great ride, and took about an hour to get there.   It was nice inside, but we were only able to get a table for 4.  Ryan really didn't want his picture taken!

We walked from the Ferry building down to  Pier 39, where all the touristy shops are, to do a bit of shopping.   We also looked at the sea lions, and had some lunch.  It was another beautiful day.

On the walk back from the ferry, the kids had fun waving to the cars.  They even got a few beeps from the drivers.

On Monday I traveled up to Guerneville, about 60 miles northwest of where we were staying, to do some onsite training at two of our properties, West Sonoma Inn, and Applewood Inn.  While I was there Mario had some alone time with the kids, and they played a great game of Monopoly.

Over the following weekend we took a break from the RV and stayed at the Hyatt in Santa Clara.  It was great to not have to go anywhere with all the rain we've been having.  We really lucked out in that it hasn't affected us too much.  The one crimp it did put in our plans is that we had planned to stay this week at New Brighton State Beach, near Santa Cruz.  They had had quite a bit of rain, and there were a lot of trees that had come down, so the campground was closed.  We moved on to another small town, Watsonville, and are now staying at Pinto Lake Park, which is a town park.  It's a pretty park with a lake, playground, and a ball field.  Next weekend we're going to visit Monterey.

The Redwoods

On November 17th we made our way to California's Redwood forest.  On our last cross country trip in 2008 we went to Sequoia National Park, which is home to the largest tree by mass, the General Sherman Tree.  It was enormous, 45 feet across at the base and still growing.  It adds about another large tree in width every year.  The Redwoods are home to the tallest trees, some reaching over 300 feet. We stayed in the park, and had a fabulous campsite with some old growth trees in it. 

 Driving through the groves makes you feel really small!  We had some great photo opportunities, and Ryan found a great use for the panoramic photo option on his new Ipod!  This was Stout Grove, named for an explorer by the name of Stout, but the trees seemed pretty stout to me too!

We found another great spot for photo ops...

I love this one, I think it's going to be our album cover!

Apparently this is where they filmed Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - this was the Ewoks' home.





All the kids had a great time climbing and exploring.  Ryan really liked this action shot
       
 

Our time in the Redwoods was short-lived, though, not long after this photo the rain started and didn't stop for three days.  We wound up leaving the park early to try to escape the rain.  We found ourselves arriving in San Francisco a few days early, but at least we escaped the rain!