Family Vacation/ Move

Warning: This post has a ton of pictures. It was way too hard to choose.

As you know, we recently moved from Monterey, CA to San Angelo, TX. While I have a little extra time waiting to move into our new house, I thought I would share with you our last moments in Monterey and our AWESOME family vacation as we drove to our new home.

We tried to take advantage of some of our favorite things while we lived in Monterey. This included a trip to the Salinas mall where Claire loves to play at the play place and rides the carousel. I happened to have my camera with me, so I was finally able to record how funny she is every time we walk by Old Navy. She LOVES the mannequins. She rides the dog, and hugs all the people she can reach (and asks us to pick her up to reach more, but we usually don't.) She also asks us their names. She is just too sweet. :)

At the play place. (We found a similar play place at the mall in San Angelo. She loves it!)

Claire and her best friend, Jaxson, got together one day to make a memorabilia craft together (of course with Cat and my help.) I forgot to take a finished product picture of both of them together, but they made a cement craft with their hand prints and names in them. They also helped decorated them. It was fun! This enjoying a beverage after the craft.

Claire also really enjoyed going to a weekly playgroup with other kids her age. There was free play time, singing time (her favorite), story time, parachute time, music time, and snack time (when the moms could talk about parenting issues.) She's especially good at helping the teacher do the hokey pokey. Look for the video below. It's fun to see her interact with kids her age and a teacher. I can tell she's going to be somewhat like me when I was a kid - always the first to answer questions and always wanting to be near the teacher. (I hugged my teacher every day after school until 5th grade when my teacher was old and a little mean.)

Story time - she's counting along with the story.

Parachute time - she hated it for most of a year, and wouldn't do it, and then suddenly loved it.

One of our favorite things about living in Monterey was living an hour away from my Aunt Bev and Uncle Ken. They have lived in California since I was born, so I only got to spend time with them a few times. Those times were special and memorable, but living near them to spend a lot more quality time with them was a precious opportunity. When I saw them on a long layover in LA over 10 years ago, I felt I wanted to kind of marriage they had - love, respect, and a lot of humor. I feel I've been blessed with such a marriage, and it was so awesome to have them get to know Chris and Claire. Claire adores them, and it was nice for her to have grandparent figures close by. We will sorely miss being so close to them, but they will always have a special place in our hearts. We hope to see them again in the not so distant future. They came down to visit the weekend before we moved. We had a great time together, and went out to dinner on the fisherman's wharf in Monterey.

Things went smoothly in packing up and getting out of our house. Here's a picture of Claire helping her daddy sweep the garage.

Relaxing with daddy after church on Sunday.

Claire found Chris's old Army hat and we found a toy trumpet while preparing for the packing. She looks like a Boogie Woogie Bugle Girl. :) Hee hee.

We left Monterey on a Friday morning and took the scenic route down Route 1, along the coast. It's known as one of the most scenic drives in America, so we took advantage of this opportunity. Part of the time it was cloudy, but most of the time I thoroughly enjoyed the amazing views as we traveled along the coast going from sea level to a couple thousand feet up in the mountains all with a view of the ocean. While I say I thoroughly enjoyed the views, Chris didn't really enjoy the driving as he doesn't really like heights, and the driving wasn't the easiest with ups and downs, twists and turns.

That night we stayed just north of L.A. and enjoyed an awesome dinner at Cheesecake Factory. Almost every night, we spent some time swimming (ok, it was usually the hot tub - Chris in, Claire partly in, and me with my feet in).

This was actually in Arizona, but it was a similar experience each night. Claire LOVED swimming. :)

The next day, we drove down to San Diego to go to the San Diego Zoo! We were blessed to have a friend give us a free ticket and since Claire is young enough, and Chris is active military, we all got in for free! We didn't get there until after lunch, so we took the bus tour first. This was a great way to see almost the whole zoo in a short period of time and of course, avoiding so much walking. We all LOVED the zoo. At the end, we took the sky lift ride that took us over the whole park. Claire loved the ride. She was so exhausted by the end of the day since she had no nap. That night we enjoyed dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. Well, we enjoyed the food. Claire was so tired that the experience was...memorable.

Chris and Claire on the bus at the zoo.

These vultures remind me of the ones on Jungle Book. "What do ya wanna do? I don't know, what do you wanna do?..."

Notice the baby giraffe, born a couple weeks before, between the other giraffes.

The next day, after going to church and getting Claire (and all of us) a good nap BEFORE going out, we went to Sea World! (We didn't want another experience like the night before.) Sea World was AWESOME! We were so blessed to be able to go for free since Chris is in the active military. We had such an amazing time. While the rides and animal viewings were lots of fun, the highlights were the two shows we saw, the whales and the dolphins. I had no idea they would be so awesome. Especially in the dolphin show, it was so much more than dolphins jumping around (which itself is pretty darn cool.) There were acrobatics, divers, music, a storyline, costumes, and exotic birds. It was quite a show, and as a musician, I could really appreciate the training and skill these performers had. I'll share some pictures and videos, but it really doesn't do the experience justice. Claire is still talking about going back to Sea World and was just this morning reenacting the show with her pals. :)

Waiting for the whale show! (We were in the soak zone and got a little wet. Claire LOVED it!)

We rode the sky ride - a capsule that took us high up to enjoy the awesome view of the park and the ocean.

Elmo and Telly where there to meet the kids and have pictures taken. Claire was really excited to see Elmo, and ran off at one point before it was her turn, following him around waiting for a hug. (We quickly retrieved her.) Elmo got lots of hugs. Unfortunately, Telly was a bit bigger, and she was really scared of him. Once I figured that out, we politely asked if she could have a picture with just Elmo.

The dolphin show! She's got a dolphin under each foot and is "water skiing" on them!

Just this morning, Claire was reenacting the dolphin show with her pals. First they were swimming, then they all sat in the chair watching the show, and then they went back to swimming like the dolphins. She was singing and dancing different parts of the show as well. What a cutie!

On Monday, we drove to Tucson, AZ. Here are some of the sites we saw.

The mountains in eastern CA were weird - they were covered in boulders and rocks.

Check out the sand dunes! It was like we were in the Sahara. I'm used to sand dunes right next to the ocean, but it was weird so far inland. I think this was right before the CA/ AZ border.

Do you see the fence under the electric pole? Beyond that is Mexico! I would have loved to cross the border and check it out a bit (a new country for me) but since Claire and Chris don't have passports, and it's kind of dangerous, this was the best we could do. Later in Texas, we saw the Rio Grande which is the border. It was still cool to see it (even if it did look the same on both sides of the fence.)

Further in Arizona, there were tons of cacti! So cool!

The next day we drove from Tucson, AZ through NM to El Paso, TX. We stayed right in the city of El Paso, and it seemed pretty nice! Again, we were right next to the border with Mexico. (We REALLY didn't want to cross that border into Juarez!)

While driving through NM, we stopped for ice cream and looked at a little shop. We saw a couple of pictures that reminded us of certain people. John, Jamie, this one is for you. :)

Dad, Chris thought you'd appreciate this one. Click to enlarge to read the small print.

The last day, we drove to our new home town - San Angelo, TX. Driving so much can be tiring for adults, and espcially 2-year olds. I have to say, we are blessed to have such an easy-going little girl. She was great in the car - usually taking an afternoon nap, enjoying her movies, singing songs, and chatting with us.

She also has a sense of adventure and loved checking out our hotels each night.

This was not the first or only time she put on daddy's socks and shoes. Oh, the things that entertain her.

The last night, she got her own queen size bed. We don't let her jump on beds at home, but let her go at it at the hotel. Woo hoo! (Oh, and she LOVES to dress like a princess.)

For some reason, putting socks on her feet and hands = being a frog.

So far, we are really enjoying San Angelo. We're enjoying the warm weather, the bigger selection of shopping and restaurants, my cell phone actually having decent coverage, and the very friendly people. We also love that we are only 1 hour different than most of our family and friends on the east coast. Here's a picture of a really pretty, nearby lake we found. We plan to go back to go boating, swimming, take Claire to the playground, and maybe camp. :)

I tried to post some videos I wanted to share: Clips from the whale and dolphin show, Claire praying, and Claire doing the hokey pokey at play group, but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't work. I'll try again another time. Sorry!