Flying To Georgia

My family is going to visit Blake and to see him graduate from the Army boot camp. Lauryn, Mary, Grandma, me and the girls, and Blake's girlfriend are going. They booked our flight for 6am and made us leave Palmdale at 3am =/ I was so tired!! But we made it, and on time. It was my Grandma's first time flying, so she was so nervous. I get motion sickness, so I was nervous too. We stopped to get breakfast for the kids before boarding. After 5 long hours, we switched planes for the last 45 minutes to get to GA. What a long day!!

 When we finally arrived in Atlanta and got the rental car and everything, we went to drive 2 hours to our hotel and then grab dinner. We were in a new city, new state, so of course we'd want to try something new, right? Well, we went to Olive Garden. Haha. Still good though :p

Due to the time change, my crazy family was up past midnight talking and laughing about how they couldn't sleep. Let me tell you how tired I was the next morning!!

The Golden Gate Bridge

We had a big day today. We woke up and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. Couldn't find parking or anything, it was so crowded. My Mom finally dropped me off with the kids to snap a few photos and picked us up after. Boy, was it colder than we thought it would be! haha.The kids got banana mushed all over my jacket, so I was freezing :p

After my Mom picked us up, we found a spot a few blocks away to park, and we walked the bridge. We got just about to the end, when the kids started complaining and getting tired, so we turned around since we still had to walk back across and to the car.

 After the bridge, my Mom took us to do some more walking, at Muir Woods. Katie had known all about the man who founded it, from school. Too cool. She was telling us about it. It was a nice short hike, very pretty.

 Katie wanted to help be our guide and show us where to go.

 We also found a cool park to tale the kids to. Lots of things to play on, and a really cool rock slide they were going down, while sitting on a piece of cardboard. This might have been their favorite part of the day.

After the park, we found a diner to eat at. The kids got their meals and ice cream dessert before we headed back to the hotel. Emma loved her chocolate ice cream!

When we got back to the hotel we let the girls go swimming. They had a super fun day!

Spring Break, San Fransisco

 My Mom planned a trip to San Fransisco for Katie's spring break this year. Katie asked if she could please bring a friend, because she gets bored with just Emma. Abby said she would be too scared to be without her parents for that long, so Katie invited her friend Kayle. We left in the morning and made a pit stop at a cute place the kids ran and played in for a while. It had a tree house, animals, store, swing, etc. It was a neat place to get some energy out at, after being in the car for a few hours. They even got ice cream in the ice cream shop before we left. Yummy snack.

When we got to the hotel, the kids played in the big tub they had. We didn't know how to go about bath time, with a friend there, so we had them both wear their bathing suits, haha.

Holiday Hydrobikes

I found this on Groupon last year, but for some reason didn't go. Maybe I had no one to go with. This year I really wanted to try it, so I texted Lauryn and we finally found a day when we're both free. My Mom watched Emma for me, since she's too young. I called and asked if Katie could ride, and found out that it would be hard for her to pedal alone, but they had double bikes and she could sit in the middle safely. So Lauryn and I had to steer together haha. It was fun! We liked it a lot, I would go back again next year. It was very unorganized and they tried to cancel it on us after we got there, even though we called on our way to make sure it was still going on. (The weather said it might rain or something that night.) When only 2 other people showed up besides us, they were about to cancel it, but we complained that we drove 2 hours to get here and the man said he'll take us out. I didn't know it was a tour that the worker took us on, I thought we just get to pedal around by ourselves for 90 minutes. But he let us make hot chocolate and took us out. The bikes had cup holders ;)

 There were not many Christmas lights, for this being the "holiday hydrobike" event, but it was still fun riding around the ocean.

 We got the worker to take a picture of us on the bike. The man behind me photobombed us. He and his wife were the only other people with us haha.

 They did not take us out for 90 minutes, I don't think it was even a full hour, but I would still do it again. It was on sale on Groupon, so we only paid $20/person. Regularly it's $60. Fun night though, Katie had a lot of fun too. She even got brave after a few minutes and stood up on the bike while we moved around.

Solvang, CA

My Mom wanted to go to Solvang this year, so we went. Not too far of a drive for us, and the town is so cute. When we got there, it was decorated for Christmas and Santa was even sitting in the park. I tried to get a picture of just Katie and Emma, but Emma was a little scared :p

 We rented one of those family bikes for an hour, that 4 people can pedal. They are hilarious and make us laugh. We did good though! Emma sat in the basket in the front for little kids, and the rest of us pedaled. We had fun driving around in it, and stopped for a snack before taking it back.

 We had lunch at a little restaurant there, but it was just okay.

 Lastly, before we went home, my Mom found some small local event they were doing nearby at a museum. They had a hay ride (kinda because there was no hay, just a horse and cart ;p) and snacks and you could look around at their museum. Katie made some hot chocolate and we went for a small ride around the town. It was pretty neat, but we felt out of place there, like everyone in the town knew we didn't live there haha. It was fun enough though. Santa & Mrs. Claus were there, but the kids didn't want to see them for a picture =/

Las Vegas Morning

After our night at RiSe. we woke up early enough to go swimming before we had to leave to go back home. Katie LOVES swimming in the hotel pools, and I always try to make sure our hotel has a pool when we go somewhere. 

It was pretty chilly so Emma didn't want to stay in very long, so we waited for my Mom, Katie and Mary to be done.

Online, it said the pool had a cool fish theme, when we got there...I guess it was all taken down? All that remained was the waterfall. It was still fun though. The shallow end even had real sand like a beach.

Mary put $1 in a machine just for fun, but she ended up walking away with only 34 cents, so she laughed and left it on the seat.

We went for breakfast at iHop, which was not good. I don't think any of us liked our food. We hopped in the car in search of something else to do. We ended up walking around the strip for an hour or two before heading home.

It was a nice morning. Katie ended up forgetting her new doll at the M&M store and we had to go back and get it for her after calling to make sure it was there. My poor Mom had to go and look for it in that 4 story building. There was a lot of traffic on the way home, we finally had to stop at Peggy Sue's diner for dinner since we weren't going to be home until late. Super fun weekend though, so glad I bought tickets. This was all a birthday present for my Mom, so I hope she had a lot of fun! I did! ;)

Gilroy Gardens

We finally made it to Gilroy Gardens. A long way to drive, but it was pretty fun. It wasn't a huge amusement park, mostly just for kids. No roller coasters really. It was fun though. Apparently, the big thing about the city of Gilroy, is garlic. They are famous for it. They sell garlic ice cream, pickled garlic, purple garlic, all kinds of stuff around the town, and the mascot for the park was even a garlic. Too funny. The town smells good though, like spaghetti, haha.

Emma was able to go on a few rides, and I think she liked them. It was nice for me to be able to go on some, too. Obviously if she didn't go on, I didn't go on, lol. It was fine though, I'm glad Katie was able to have fun, and even had Sam to play with. She loves when friends are able to go places with us.