California Adventure

We took a week long vacation last week to California.  I had a conference in San Francisco and Dustin and Austin came along.  We flew in on Tuesday.  We got to the hotel, the Parc 55 at about 6:30pm so we were tired and hungry so we ordered room service for dinner.  It was expensive, but so worth being able to stay in and kick back.  My conference started Wednesday and I went to the morning sessions.  Since the afternoon sessions were the same old stuff that they do every year I skipped and we went to the California Academy of Sciences. Austin LOVED the aquarium part.

That night we took a cab down to Pier 39 where we had dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.  We saw the sea lions and looked at Alcatraz.

Thursday I spent the whole day at my confernce.  Dustin took Austin to Moscone Park.

That night we took the cable car down to Fisherman's Warf.  We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack and then went to Ghiradelli Square for ice cream.  It was so cute, we ordered waffle cones for us, mine was chocolate chip cookie dough and Dustin's was chocolate.  For Austin we ordered a cake cone and vanilla ice cream.  They served them on their sides in a dish so we picked ours up like a normal cone.  Austin wanted to pick his up too, but was messing around with it and nocked off the ice cream.  Luckily I saw this coming and grabbed it and put it back in the dish.  Austin licked the little bit of ice cream that was left on his cake cone.  Then he wanted to try mine and I gave him a lick.  Then he tried Dustin's.  He looked at both of our cones then grabbed Dustin's and handed him his empty cake cone.  Dustin was not amused!

Friday I went to the last sessions of my conference while the boys went back to the airport to get a rental car.  We drove up to Vina, California to see our friends from college Amber and her brother Grant.

Saturday we drove to Rohnert Park.  It was dumping rain by that point so after we rested a bit we went to Chuckie Cheese's.  It was a bit overwhelming for Austin since there were tons of people there trying to get out of the rain.

Sumday we made a big sight seeing loop.  We drove up to Guerneville to see Armstrong Redwood Park and Austin Creek State Park.  It was pooring rain the whole day so we briefly got out for quick pictures.

We continued on to the coast and drove down to Bodega Bay.  We had lunch there overlooking the bay, then drove back up to the first beach just north of there.  It was super cold and rainy so we only were out there briefly too, but Austin loved playing in the sand and did not want to leave.

Monday morning we got up early and headed back to San Francisco.  We stopped by Muir Woods National Park so we could check it out and get Austin's National Parks Passport stamped, but Austin fell asleep in the car and traffic was a little sticky so we wanted to pretty much get back on the road to make our flight.  I ran up to the visitor center to get the passport stamped and it was 8:50am, but they did not open until 9:00am.  I knew we needed to be moving so I did not wait, which is fine since Austin didn't really see any of it.

Our flight back was pretty uneventful as well as the drive home from the airport.  It was a fun trip and we are happy to be home now.