Santa Barbara and Ventura Beach

We went with Nellie and kids to one of our favorite places, the Santa Barbara Pier. We love walking around on it and shopping in the little shop.

At the end of the pier with Nellie, Grace, and Logan.
Santa Barbara is the background.
Today we went to the Ventura beach. It was overcast for most the morning and kind of cold, but by the afternoon the sun finally showed up and it was a beautiful day.
Spenny, Logan, and I looking at the cold water and thinking, no way we are getting in.
I tried to build a sand castle with Logan, but it didn't really work out.
All he wanted to do was smash them, so I joined in.
Jackie sun bathing . . . . .
I buried Tyler's nephews in the sand. They live right on the beach.

Here is our group of friends here in Ventura. We sure do miss them but it has been fun hanging out with them this week. It will be fun having Tyler and Jen a little bit closer to us in the near future.
Jackie saying good-bye to Logan and Grace. So sad.

Monterey

We made our way to Monterey on Wednesday and were able to go to the Aquarium. It didn't look that big on the map, but walking around the place took us almost three hours without kids and we hurried the last hour.

We tried watching their little show about saving energy. It was kind of funny but geared towards little kids and I got bored so we left.
A picture of the bay and the Aquarium. It was huge.
I think at this place is where they got the idea of some of the plant life in Avatar. The plant life they had there was crazy. It is amazing at how much we don't know about the ocean and what things live there.
These things were cool as well.
See if you can find the fish.
Why hello Mr Octopus. I kept wishing that he would move so we could see him all stretched out, but he didn't move from that spot on the window.
They had tons of different jelly fish.
This was probably my favorite part of the Aquarium. I guess I don't remember seeing Sea Horses before, but they were really interesting to watch. There were a couple different types of Sea Dragons that are family of the sea horses. They were amazing to look at and we wondered how there had been so many different animals created that we had no idea existed.
This one is a Sea Dragon. When you were standing away from the tank it looked like plants that were floating around. Once you got up close you could see that those little plants had faces on them.
It's amazing how they swam. They have little fins on their lower back that look like tiny fingers, almost like a comb that they used to swim. They would flutter by and you couldn't see the fins moving unless you looked closely. They have pectoral fins that are located behind the eyes that help them steer.




We made friends with the Bubba Gump Shrimp.
One of the many cool buildings on Cannery Row in Monterey.
A picture of the vineyards just north of Santa Barbara.
We finally arrived in Ventura after a long drive and first stopped off to see Spenny, Nellie, Logan and Grace. Here is Jackie with Grace.

Big Basin Redwoods

We headed down to the Big Basin Redwoods on Tuesday. We stopped off in a little town called Boulder Creek to have lunch at Round Table Pizza and then headed up to the State Park.

Here is a picture of a tree that they said was like 800 years old before Columbus discovered America. The little silver plaques are time lines in history.
Here is me on a tree that had fallen over, if you can see me at the top.
The trees are crazy that they start out as one and then split into two and some are hollowed out.
The view looking straight up at the tall trees. It is amazing the height they can reach, but with bases like they have they could go on forever! Some are over 300 feet tall.
This kind of shows you how big the trees are, I'm not even close to hugging that whole tree.
Jackie hiding in one.
The view from inside the tree on a couple of them. I am not sure how the trees got to be completely hollowed on the inside.

This tree was like 66 feet around.
This one was even bigger. 70 feet in circumference at the ground and 329 feet high.

San Fran and Oakland

Driving across the Bay Bridge on our way to San Fran. The bridge toll was only 6 bucks. What an expensive daily commute if you work in San Fran.

We first stopped off at Fort Point after our GPS thing lead us through I think every street in San Francisco. Let's just say we saw the same street multiple times. Stupid quickest route thing.
Some shots of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is at the top of Fort Point. It was so windy and cold at the top. It was freezing!!!

In one of the stairwells.
This is the inside of Fort Point. As you can tell it is right underneath the bridge.
One of the cannons inside the fort.
We walked a little ways across the Golden Gate Bridge. I couldn't believe how busy it was on a Monday.

This is a picture of the cable at the beginning of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's amazing how big the cables are that hold up that bridge.

This is at the Exploratorium. They were re-doing the grounds so we really didn't get to walk around it. Just the view from the street.
This was at the Golden Gate Park. We drove around the park but didn't get out of the car. We were so tired of the San Fran traffic, that we just wanted to go back to the hotel and take a nap. The GPS thing on my phone took us on crazy routes through the city. It really irritated me by the end.
I was pretty excited to go to the A's-Red Sox game. This has been the highlight of the trip for me so far. It felt great to be back in that stadium.
We had great seats, row 16 between home plate and the 3rd base dugout.
This is me, Scott, and Tyler. Tyler was my best friend growing up here in the Bay Area. We used to go to the games all the time. It was fun to meet up with him and catch up. We hadn't see each other for a long time. We had an extra ticket to the game and Scott was out here for the summer for an internship. It was fun to have him come to the game with us as well.
Jackie loved the banjo playing guy in the A's cape. He walked around the stadium all game playing his banjo.
Pictures of the game.
Here is David Ortiz, my favorite Dominican ball player.
Here is Jackie and I. The game went by so fast that we couldn't believe it was over. The A's ended up losing 2-1, but it was still a great game and fun to be back there.