Holidays 2012 - Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge definitely is a wonder. So majestic!

 Our kids were SO good the entire road trip. CRAZY good! They spoiled us so much, which we were grateful for! It definitely made for fun traveling and stopping along the way to see sites.

Holidays 2012 - China Town

 Cables for the cable cars.

 Amazing lantern covered street.

 Cable cars!

 Green lights as far as the eye can see!

Holidays 2012 - San Francisco

Neat Buildings

 Lombard Street. Neither of us had ever seen this in person. SO rad!

 Pier 39 to go sea lion watching.

 Alcatraz

 The kids had some folded up brochures that they pretended were their phones/cameras. Here they are "taking pictures" of the sea lions.

 Giant Christmas tree at the pier. Mind you, I am 4 weeks from giving birth at this point, so don't mind me. If you've been pregnant, you know how photogenic you feel by this point :)

Holidays 2012 - Oregon Coast

Once we hit the coast, weather took a turn for the better. Mild temperatures and NO snow :)

We stopped at a cove where people were whale watching. We didn't see any whales but it was so pleasant to stand outside and breathe in the slightly warm humid air.

As we approached Redwood National Park we saw this place where you could walk through a redwood grove. We stopped in and found Paul Bunyan and his giant blue ox, Babe.

They also had a Sasquatch. What more could you ask for?

One of my favorite things about the coast is that everything is covered in vegetation. I love how all the limbs on the trees are furry green. SO lush and beautiful!

We spotted a herd of elk along our pretty drive.

As we neared warmer weather beaches we stopped at multiple surf shops to try to find Eric some boogie boarding fins. I loved the look of this surf shop. It screams "good times"!

Holidays 2012 - Traveling through Oregon

We saw a lot of pretty sights while traveling through Oregon. Cool old stores, a natural hot geyser, fun old signs, CRAZY blue streams, and gorgeous mountainsides.

 It was really cold, which added to the stress of traveling snow packed roads in the night. I kept praying that nothing would happen that would cause us to be stalled on one of the snowpacked highways that were fairly infrequently traveled, especially at night. Eric and I talked about how this would be such a fun adventure that we would seek out if we were single or at least childless. But now that we have kids, and I was pregnant, it is a more stressful "adventure".

 Ivan LOVES having his window rolled down, even when it is frigid. Reese kind of hates it, unless it is really nice out.

 In this picture, the vehicle on the left  is stuck in the snow bank on the side. We came across them late in the evening. A man in his 50's was digging at the snow bank and inside the car was a larger lady on oxygen. They had been there for quite a while and the man had been digging like crazy. We were wishing we had our Subaru with a tow strap, but alas, we only had our Camry, and no tow strap. We recognized that we couldn't leave two older people, one on oxygen, stuck in the freezing cold, so....Eric dug for a long time alongside the man. I tried to drive the car out backwards while both Eric and the man pushed and lifted it but it was just too stuck. We realized it wasn't coming out with digging so the next option was to get a tow. The people said they didn't know anyone who had a truck that could come help, nor did they have a phone so Eric started calling all the nearby tow truck companies. When he would relay the price onto the man, he would become disgusted and say, "I'm not paying that." I felt bad for them, and felt hopeless. We were seconds from offering them the cash to pay for a tow when a vehicle approached. Hallelujah! It was an SUV, with what??? a winch on the front! AWESOME! In seconds the car was unstuck!

Some funnies thrown into this story:
- At one point I asked the man if he would like some trail mix or water. He told me he couldn't eat the trail mix because he had no teeth. I will blame the dark night for my having not noticed. I then proceeded to ask if his mom would like some. He said, "huh?", I realized I didn't necessarily know what she was to him so I cooly said, "Would the lady with you like some?" After the fact, once we were down the road away,  I found out it was his GIRLFRIEND, via Eric who was telling me of a conversation he had had with the man. My face blushed and I felt so bad!