California Vacation

Well, the Dunagan family did it again! We went on a huge vacation to California for 10 days with the kids! Why did I say with the kids.....I can't think of anything we have done without them. All our trips are with them. But some people seem to think this is weird or hard to do. To us, it is normal. The kids did wonderful. Now how they bounce back to 'normal routine' tomorrow will be a different story.

We boarded the airplane for California on a Wednesday! What a blast. The kids had a great time on the airplane. I made Adam an 'activity' book and he worked on that book the entire time. Did not want to watch a movie at all....just wanted to do his activity book. YAY mom! Claire took a nap on the plane and after 4 hours we arrived in California. California was beautiful. I enjoyed every second of our trip. (except we all got sick but we still braved everything)

We stayed in Daly City at our favorite hotel chain - Hampton Inn. We were welcomed with a guest of the day sign and some nice treats. We spent 3 days in San Francisco. We did almost everything. Walked the entire Warf. Walked to Giardelli Square, walked up and down all the side streets. We went to Fort Point below the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty cool. We went across the bridge to Saciledo. We ate at an Italian restaurant in Saciledo. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge visitor center and hiked around to a cliff that over looked the ocean and might very well have been my favorite part. I couldn't help but wish that in a different time I could have lived there and enjoyed solo runs everyday. What I different life that would have been. It was so beautiful. We ate Clam Chowder on the pier overlooking Alcatraz. We ate fish sandwiches on Pier 39. We walked all the way to China Town! Loved the little walk. On our walk back we found a park and let the kids play. And of all things I almost forgot that I loved, loved, loved the seals!!!

From there we went to Yosemite National Park! Oh my word loved this! We stayed at the Teneya Lodge. It was a blast! It was very family friendly. Families were everywhere! And I absolutely loved that. We could sit by the campfire and roast marshmellows, we could ice skate, swim, play in the arcade, hike, sled...you name it from this lodge we could do it! They had 4 restaurants just in the lodge and I honestly loved this....if we were hungry we could just charge it to the room! The weather for this trip was perfect. It was cool with old snow on the ground and sunny. We had to layer because it was chilly to start our hikes but once into the hike we would be sweating. We saw some of the most beautiful sequoia trees. HUGE! Loved it! We saw some waterfalls and a few days later we had a 'lodge day' while it snowed fresh powder snow that covered everything! Then we went tubing in Badger Pass. The next day the snow started to melt and it was about time to leave from there.

From there, we went toward Napa Valley! And it was pretty. BUT ummmmmmm not our thing. Total let down for us! Enough said.

We stayed in Fairfield and went to Jelly Belly Factory! Blast! Then we went to a local California kids park called Fairyland. Good concept and all for the kids.

Then home!