Sunday, March 2, 2014

The Tour of California

Last week I had a planned week off of work and the boys and I rented a nice SUV, (lust worthy for moi, and no need to worry about putting 1700 miles on my Subaru...1700 miles!!! Ahhhh!) and took off down the coast for a nice tour of Coastal CA! We stayed with my parents the majority of the time, but also hit Pismo Beach, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, and Napa in between for some fun. The boys were great travelers actually. I timed the drives well I think to help our cause as I was traveling solo, and didn't want to get in over my head. I also borrowed an idea from old college friend Alison with special gifts or treats every hour or two on the first day to keep the monkeys happy...and happy they were! Playdoh, new books, glow i the dark worms for night time, you name it, we probably had it. We only watched one car movie the whole ride and they were super excited and stoked to be in a new cool car and visit family. MUCH better than flying I'll say!!! A bit is left off here, including a momentous birthday party for my Dad and a visit to the fire station for the boys...they will come up later, I promise!
Enjoy the pictures...in no particular order...

Talin enjoys some book reading with Grampa...

Forrest and Talin loved the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena. The thing they liked the most...the artificial river!!!

Believe it or not this is Forrest's first real experience at trike racing. Concrete is rare where we live. He rides his off road trike around plenty but just getting the thing to move is a chore. Racing, yea right! He had a blast getting better and better at following the arrows, getting the hang of merging with other trike riders, and having the occasional collision or two ;-) This was also at the Kidspace Museum in Pasadena.

Finishing off their ice cream treats at Kidspace Museum.

Enjoying some sweet reading time with Granny!

Bike ride with Grandpa! This was Forrest's longest ride yet. 14 miles on the kiddie tandem hook up we have. This was a stream runoff that the kids had fun playing in.

Cogswell Cyn bike ride, lunch stop. Leave it to my Dad to find the most beautiful spots in LA county.

Playing with the Panorama...Wait...two Talins?

That Forrest can push on my last nerve!!! ;-)

14 miles finished!

Visit to Granny's T-K classroom. This is her last year teaching. So glad my boys got to see her classroom. They love that their Granny is a Kindergarten Teacher!
We started and ended the trip enjoying Santa Barbara. The kids had SO MUCH FUN building sand castles, joining in on other kids projects of digging holes, jumping in the waves, etc. We were blessed with beautiful weather on our trip and made the most of it!

3 comments:

Ashley said...

Looks like fun! Looks like you did well with 2 kids traveling on your own! I have been wanting to take the kids to the kidspace museum but haven't made it down there!

Sheelagh said...

WOW! What a trip!?!?! You motivate me to try more driving this summer (maybe on my own?!?!). Maybe we will come see you without John....he might not like that idea though. haha

Alison Willis said...

Nice!! What a great road trip! I am glad the gifts per hour worked out... it even made the time go faster for me...I realized night driving was when we really needed to bust out the DVD player- no scenery to look at was a challenge.
this really looks like a great trip!!

the pic with you and talin and forrest in the background is pretty awesome--- even if he is pushing your buttons:)
and that kidspace museum looks awesome!