Road Trip Thanksgiving 2008

Whew I am soo behind...Here is the first of a few posts to catch you up. The week prior to Thanksgiving...or rather 5 day prior to Thanksgiving we took the kids on an amazing road trip. About a week prior to this road trip my husband let each of the kids make a list of places in California they would like to see or visit. They could search the internet, ask family and friends etc. They complied a long list and some suggestions even overlapped.He finally narrowed it down to 2 choices for each kid between our home in San Diego and San Francisco. Here is how it unfolded

Stop #1 Sarah Choice Pismo Beach
Rolling down the sand dunes at Pismo Beach, yes she did mean that literally. We had to find some really fun dunes and wait for all the motorcyclist to pass ( us being the family without those 4 wheeling toys) and jump off an roll down the hill....This made Sarah very Happy! We also got to drive on the Beach which the kids thought was cool, but Emily was even happier when we let HER drive on the Beach...
Here are som more pics from Pismo
We made sure we booked hotels where they had free breakfast...here is where we ate breakfast the first morning outside our hotel room...Gorgeous View!

Stop #2 Emily's Choice Winchester Mystery House

Okay so we only got one picture outside the Winchester House. No pictures were allowed inside. All I have to say is that was the weirdest house I have ever seen. Tha winchester lady was a little bit of crazy. We had the most annoying tour guide who had memorized the whole script for the tour and did not or could not deviate from it..litteraly, she coughed twice in a row and kept having to rewind herself. It was one of those events that made us all laugh and will make it memorable.

Stop #3 Sarah's Choice Golden Gate BridgeWe did it all...we drove across it one way, got out took pictures walked half way back across it (until some little children got scared..we won't name names) and then went back and drove back across it the other way. WOW that is alot of the Golden Gate Bridge. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. When I was younger we did not go on vacations, I always imagined families vacationing during the summer to the Golden gate bridge so this was a great day for me to take my own kids there.

Stop #4 Adam's Pick Alcatraz

Alcatraz was fascinating if you are ever in S.F you should most certainly take the tour. It is a self guided audio tour which Adam LOVED he is a sponge for information like that. He loved every minute of it!

After Alcatraz we spent the evening at the Famous Fisherman's Warf



Stop #5 Emily's Pick Jelly Belly factory

Once again no pictures allowed so here is a picture of the kids outside the factory posing with the Jelly Car.

This was so cool to see all the Jelly Belly's being made every time you turned a corner you could smell the kind of Jelly Bean they were making....and the colors of all the bins of Beans was amazing. If you hare ever near by this is a great stop.

Stop #6 Adam's Pick

Well adam wanted to pan for gold but unfortunately the pass we need to go through for that was closed due to snow so we took another route which led us up through south Lake Tahoe and then back down through Mammoth. We spent the night in Mammoth and the hiked a little and I emphasize little way in to an old Gold Mine.


So ther you have it our Road Trip November 2008 It was a whirlwind trip all of that in 5 days. We saw lots of amazing things, laughed alot, even fought a little (what would a trip with kids be without a little arguing :) but we made some Great Memories! Thanks for a great trip I love you Guys.

Here are some of my other favorite pics from the trip
That is looking down at an earthquake fault in mammoth.