california.

We got home from California late last night & crashed! We packed so much into those 4 days of travel! It was so much fun. On Tuesday we started out the trip in our signature way... with a delayed flight :) Paul & Lyn should have known better than to travel with us! We have bad luck with airports. We flew into Oakland and rushed to get some dinner before everything was closed for the night. We got to the resort around midnight. I was so tired until I got to to our Bungalow... and then I was giddy. The bungalows are so beautiful! They are individual little houses with kitchens and fireplaces and beautiful wood floors and a little patio with amazing view outside of the french doors... and the bathroom... amazing! I took about 50 pictures of that bathroom alone :) Anyway... I was excited, to say the least.

On Wednesday Sean tried to get me to sleep in... but I hate doing that. So I got up early :) We were pretty lazy all day. Paul was in meetings all day. Lyn went with us into Morgan Hill for some lunch and then we just layed around the room all day! They put binoculars in your room so you can watch the golfers (the bungalows overlook the golf course). So we spied on them for a while. It was sort of funny to watch because it was extremely windy and they were all struggling. At 8:00, we went to an American Idol finale party. The other people that were there for Paul's meetings stayed in a larger house with 4 bedrooms and a common area. So we went to their house and watched the finale with a bunch of the most unlikely American Idol fans you could imagine :) And of course, we were all disappointed. BOO david cook!
On Thursday, we left CordeValle (sad) around 11:00 and headed to Monterey. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was really fun! Then we drove down the "17 mile drive" all along the coast and down to Carmel. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. It was sooo beautiful. We didn't get out of the car much at the first few stops because it was SOOO cold and windy. But as we got further down the coast, the weather mellowed a bit and we got out and took pictures. One of the scenic stops was called Seal Rock (I think). There was a rock out away from the shore that was covered in seals. And they were swimming all around. It was so fun to see. We also drove past the Lone Cypress and Pebble Beach. After the drive, we headed back to San Francisco to the hotel. We took a detour through the countryside to avoid the fire that was up in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was so pretty. Northern California is one place I think I could live. It's so green!
On Friday we headed into downtown San Francisco. Our first stop {and this was 100% Sean's idea} was to go see the house that the Tanner Family lived in. Yes, we are aware that Full House wasn't actually filmed in San Francisco. It's just the house that they show on the episodes. And let me tell you... it wasn't that exciting! After that lovely detour, we went down to Fisherman's Wharf. We walked all around and down to Pier 39. This was another of my favorite parts... because of the sea lions! They all just hang out on these wood floaty things all day and bark. I seriously spent a good 30 minutes just watching them. They were funny and LOUD :) Then we walked around and looked at all the shops on the pier before walking down to Pier 33. This is where the Alcatraz ferries leave from. Alcatraz was really fun & interesting. It was beautiful on the island, too. All the buildings are decaying and have moss growing all over them and there are flowers everywhere. The audio tour through the cell block was awesome. Usually I get bored history tours like that pretty quickly, but it was really fun.
After Alcatraz, we ate some yummy burgers at Hard Rock and then hit the road again. We went down Lumbard Street {the crooked one}. It was kind of fun. But it was just a curvy street. I am amazed, however, at how steep all of the streets in SF are! It's kind of scary going down them. After Lumbard, we went down to the Golden Gate bridge. We drove across, took some pictures, and came back. Then we went to the Bay bridge to get to Oakland so we could make our flight on time! It was a verrrry busy day. We walked a lot, drove a lot, and got a lot of sun. But I think I got to see pretty much everything I wanted to in San Francisco {except for Alamo Square & Ghirardelli Square}. I am so glad that Paul & Lyn invited us. We had a blast!