Back from Summer Vacation in CA

El Camino Area 

(or as my husband fondly refers to as, "The Hills")

Orchards upon orchards.

California soil must be a lot better than ours!

At home, we never stumble across wild blackberries.

Rickety Old Bridge

Sacramento

The LDS Sacramento Temple is beautiful!

The Temple grounds are large and open, we found some wild turkeys and deer walking around.

Sutter's Mill/Marshall Gold Discovery

We thought this sign was funny!

Jackson

We found some cute shops and walked around "Downtown Jackson."

We took this picture just outside of Jackson.

Calaveras Big Trees

This tree was tragically cut to demonstrate it's size - an automobile drove through it.

California Sunset

Walnut Creek

We went for a morning stroll in the "Open Space" behind my Aunt's house.

We took my cousin's dog along with us.

San Francisco

Exploratorium

Soap Bubble Painting

More bubble fun, this time with dry ice.

We had races to see how fast we could get the marble inside of this ball to go.

Golden Gate Bridge

Lombard Street

Beach and Cliff House

Believe it or not, it was my little sister's first time to the beach (well, since she was 7 months old).

She kept telling me, "I want to see the ocean."

I would look out and say, "There's the ocean."

"No," she would say, "I mean the endless ocean. Where it goes on and on, and you can't see anything else."

Here you go little sis., "The Endless Ocean!"

It was really funny to watch her because she was more excited than I have ever seen her!

However, it took her a little while to figure out how to play on the beach. I think she finally got it down.

Redwood Park

We saw giant sequoia redwoods at Big Trees, but here we were able to see coastal redwoods!

Wicked

I was very ignorant and knew basically nothing about the story of Wicked, but I had heard a couple of the songs. We had a blast! The set and costumes were amazing. I have some good design ideas forming!

Six Flags - Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo

Killer whale, Shouka

My cousin, Carissa, works at Discovery Kingdom in the Lorikeet Aviary.

She invited us to come and feed the birds, it was awesome!

This is Carissa answering some questions. She knows a lot about all kinds of animals!

White bengal tiger, swimming!

Oakland

This day we celebrated our 9th Anniversary!

HUGE Hydrangeas!

We packed a lot of fun into our trip and had a blast. 

We came home kind of tired, and now we need a vacation from our vacation!