San Diego

We've been to San Diego twice before, but somehow we missed Coronado beach. Somebody mentioned it in passing to us, so we thought we'd go check it out.

The amazing thing about this beach is that the sand is gold. Well, pyrite, but it glitters like gold for as far as the eye can see.

Sawyer wasn't a big fan of the wind. It took him about an hour of hiding under his blanket to 

cheer up. 

Don't I have the best looking' boys? Their future significant others are so lucky.

When in doubt, make a weird face at the camera. 

Beach bums. (See what I did there?)

Oliver got his first body boarding lessons. He was a natural. 

These waves were so great. He was singing Beach Boys the whole way home. 

Once he decided that the wind wasn't the end of the world, he came for a walk with me. Kids and the ocean. It's magic. 

Sigh. I love this guy. 

It was so fun to watch them having fun together. As your kids get older, they slowly turn into your very best friends. 

This little heartbreaker. Am I right?

Then we went to Legoland! The kids didn't even know Leogland existed, so we decided to make it a surprise. As we were pulling up, we played "Everything is awesome", which, if you have kids and have seen the Lego movie, is probably the only song you have listened to in about 4 months. 

They were crazy excited. Surprising kids is the best. 

.

Emmet even danced for them. They LOVED it. 

Chewy! There were so many life sized creations. 

There was this great playhouse with giant Lego blocks. I honestly think the younger boys would have been happy to stay and play with those the whole day. I wanted to buy some but they're not for sale :(

We actually ended up going for two days because it's kid of a buy-one-day-get-one-free deal. (Really, two days isn't necessary, if it was already paid for, why not?) I was really glad we ended up going, because it was great for Sawyer to get a taste of what it's like to be on a ride, and we didn't want him to be afraid of anything at Disneyland. 

We spent some time just wandering around downtown, enjoying the beauty of the city and the balmy weather. We stepped into this fabulous art gallery which was mostly full of the works of Chuck Jones. The entire place made me think of my mom, who was most likely the biggest Merrie Melodies fan out there. Her nickname (not kidding) was Bugs Bunny, because she was the best prankster out there.  There was a lot of Disney art as well. I kind of wanted every single piece. We weren't allowed to take pictures of course, but we did snag this great one of Wile E. Coyote. 

We are just in love with San Diego. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows a lot. Probably more than is healthy, but whatevs.

We went to Balboa Park, which was huge and beautiful. The Natural History Museum has the incredible exhibit right now called "Real Pirates".  It features discoveries from the real pirate ship called the Ouida (pronounced Wee-dah). In 1984 a sailor and fisherman from Cape Cod, after years of research and planning, discovered the long lost pirate ship of Captain Sam Bellamy. They had rooms and rooms of artifacts recovered from the ship, including weaponry, kitchen utensils, pirate treasure, and even the shoe (and leg!) of the youngest ever pirate, a 9 year old boy. There is so much fascinating information in this exhibit that I can't even come close to relating it all. It's a travelling National Geographic exhibit, so I strongly urge you to check with your local museum to see if it might travel near you- it is so worth checking out. 

This dino, although it looks like a T-Rex, is an Allosaurus. It actually lived 75 million (million!) years before the Tyrannosaurus, but they are closely related. Some theories suggest that the T-Rex evolved from the Allosaurus. 

Sawyer really loved looking through these. Lucky for him, they're all over this museum. 

Beautiful gardens at Balboa. Sigh. It's so difficult to get everyone smiling at once! But I'll take what I can get. 

La jolla is probably my very favourite place in all of San Diego. It's beautiful, somehow always warm, even when the rest of the city is cool, and is protected from the constant wind that is present at every single other beach in San Diego. I could go here every day.

I know we have like 5 million selfies like this, but I just don't care. I like to document everything. So deal with it. 

So, there was this big pile of sea lions, just happily basking in the sun. You can see that they're all dry except for the one by the water. We sat here for about 10 minutes watching him. He was just waiting for the waves to come crashing over him. He kept sticking his head near the water, as if willing a wave to come his way. It was hilarious. Even Sawyer was cracking up. 

Oh, these boys. 

So that's how we spend almost a month. Of course there was some school/work involved, and by month's end we were more than ready to move on with the trip. Our wanderlust is too strong to want to be in any given place for more than a few weeks. At least for now. Ask me how I feel after 4 months of RV living with 3 small boys!

California Dreams

So, basically we were like "Hey, isn't California great? Let's just stay here for like a month".  It's warm, the coastline is breathtaking, and there a million and one things to do here in So Cal. (Southern California. That's what they call it here. I'm practically a local.)

After we left San Francisco, we just stayed on the 101 and Hwy 1 and drove along the coast. It's just impossible to tire of that view. First we came to Big Sur, and we quickly realized why it's so famous. It was different than so much of California. It was very laid back and slow. We stayed at this beautiful campsite right on the river and there was no internet of cell service at all. It was.....freeing in a strange way. For a few days, anyway, but then we were going crazy with out it so we left. Pathetic. 

But we were a 5 minute walk from a little strip of shops and restaurants. It was just like a little surfing village. It reminded us a bit of Tofino, but smaller. So we camped and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and felt like we were camping back home. It was awesome. 

So goofy. I'd be so bored without them. 

It's impossible to roast marshmallows without somebody getting some in their hair. 

Our next stop was Pismo Beach. It reminds me of this..."I'm chairperson for the Pismo Beach Disaster League! Some people lost all their belongings...don't you think that includes athletic equipment?" If you know me well you will know exactly what I'm talking about. 

We actually never made it to the beach because we had some less than desirable weather and we didn't really like the RV park...so we just wanted to get a move on. But we did manage to find the most adorable farm and bakery I've ever seen. Erika, you would been absolutely in love with he kitchen shop...it was all rustic and French and rooster-y. I was wishing you were there the whole time!

We took a tractor ride around the farm. It was just adorable. 

So after that we headed right down to San Diego. We knew we wanted to be grounded for at least a few weeks so that Matt could get some proper work done and we would be able do our home schooling without too many interruptions.  We rented a car so that we'd have flexibility and be able to sight-see without having to pack up the RV every time. It's been great. It's almost started to feel like regular life (sort of) so we're actually getting ready to get outta here! Who needs regular life? But we're waiting for one more week because we are meeting my bro, sister in law, nephews and niece for a week in Disneyland! I don't know who is more excited around here, grown ups or kids. But we've done some pretty fantastic things here in San Diego so far. 

To our great frustration, the internet here is horrible, and since it's Easter weekend, the park is FULL of campers, making the internet even 10 times slower. It won't let me upload any more photos, so I'm going to have to wait until the middle of the night or something to finish this.  If I was really annoying I'd do something like this...#firstworldproblems. But hashtagging is stupid and I'd never do anything like that. #sorrynotsorry

San Francisco!

Ok, and the Redwood National Forest too. Or, as we call it in our family, Endor. Admit it, you do too.

The trees were so big and beautiful. The weather was just like you imagine it would be, warm but still slightly crisp. It smelled amazing. This shot was of Sawyer because Matt and the older boys were running around somewhere pretending they were in speeders and being Ewoks and Storm Troopers. 

Sawyer called me "Mummy Ewok" for about a week. 

I had way more pictures, but I think they got deleted somehow :( Maybe I'll find them someday. We found a tree called "The Big Tree" (someone was feeling really creative) and it's 6 meters in diameter. It was pretty amazing to say the least!

Then we went to San Francisco! I have been dreaming about this city since I was an Uncle Jesse loving kid. Matt had a conference to be at all week, and the idea of navigating this crazy city solo with the boys was slightly daunting to me. So, for my birthday, Matt bought my fabulous sister Leah a plane ticket and she spent the week with me. 

It was so amazing. We had wonderfully warm weather and since we were there during the week, we didn't have to deal with too many crowds. 

I didn't really mean to have them all in red shirts. It just happened. This is at our RV park. It was right on the water. We were a 2 minute walk from a pizza place, drug store and groceries. It was great. We rented a car because downtown San Fran was about 15-20 minutes north of where we were. In theory, I guess I'll admit that it was useful to have a car so that we didn't have to rely on the bus, sky trains or taxis, but I can honestly say that San Francisco has the most insane drivers on the planet. Even Leah, who lives in Seattle and is used to crazy freeways and fast drivers agreed. Without any exaggeration (I swear) it took me 10 minutes to cross an intersection. People literally ignored all the traffic signs and lights and just went when they felt like it. Semi trucks were going through red lights. And there's a major lack or proper signage, so getting lost is incredibly easy. People honk here like there's no tomorrow. I'm getting tense just remembering it all. Ok. End of rant. 

On Wednesday, we drove to the Jelly Belly factory. It's about an hour north of San Fran, but well worth the drive. 

They have these great factory tours (free) and you get to learn all about the history and making of the Jelly Belly. And then they have a tasting bar and you get to try all the flavours. My favourites were ice cream parlour  and raspberry chocolate dip. Oliver tried...beer. I don't even know why, but he ate it before he even told me. And he liked it. Weird kid. I bought a little box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour  Beans and made the kids eat them. Hayden actually liked the soap but they really hated the sausage. Hayden was brave and tried vomit too, and said it was the worst thing he has ever tasted. I think dirt is pretty awful too. 

Leah got these Pineapple Jelly Belly sodas. They were so disgusting. It was really just like drinking liquified Jelly beans. Blech. 

Peace, bro. 

Next day we went down to Pier 39. It was totally kitschy and touristy and awesome. There were more ice cream shops than necessary, 500 picture frames emblazoned with the golden gate bridge, and endless miniature mugs. All the useless crap that I'm a total sucker for. 

The only problem was all the birds. Poor Leah has a bird phobia, due to the obscenely large number of times that she has been attacked by them. No joke. I can't even count how many. And I really do mean viciously attacked. So Hayden and Oliver were great nephews and did a great job clearing the path for her so we could walk freely. 

We found this neat little magic shop. The guys who work there are all pretty good magicians (or at least slight-of-hand artists) and Oliver and Hayden both got to help out with some tricks. 

They got some help purchasing some age appropriate magic tricks that they can do for their friends and Dad. 

Later in the day, Hayden found a penny on the ground, and then dropped it a few minutes later. I found it, and then pretended I found it behind his ear. He was shocked that I could actually do magic. Amazed. I blew his mind. It was the cutest moment of the trip so far I think. 

He dropped it again about an hour later, and Leah found it behind his ear this time. Same shock and amazement. It happened a few more times (not even on purpose, he's just a little...prone to dropping things). He was blown away every time. Sometimes I think that I would love to be 5 again and live in a state of mind where anything is possible and everything is incredible. I love his spirit. 

So Leah and I spent the next couple days sight seeing, swimming with the kids, and eating ice cream. It's kind of our thing. Meanwhile, Sawyer was struggling with a pretty bad cold and sleeping a LOT. Which is not like him whatsoever. It wasn't getting better. One night he wasn't sleeping well and so he climbed into our bed. His breathing was incredibly fast, even asleep. So we took him to the ER. It was pneumonia. 

Have you ever seen a sadder face?

Poor little bug. But the staff at the hospital was great and we were grateful to have excellent travellers medical insurance. He perked up that evening and within 48 hours he was acting almost like himself again. 

Once we felt like he could be out and about again, we went to do the rest of the stuff on our San Fran bucket list. Like the painted ladies at Alamo Square. 

If that doesn't scream "Full House" I don't know what does. It was beautiful, Full House fan or not. 

The thing Matt was most excited to see was the Golden Gate Bridge. When we initially drove into the city, it was incredibly foggy and we couldn't even see the bridge when we were driving across it. It was nuts. So we went back and found a great little park and information centre. It was pretty neat. 

It was a beautiful, clear day. It was easy to see why so many people love this city. 

It was windy though. Like, really, really  windy. 

Aren't they just the best? I love how they are best friends. 

It really was a pretty great week. Good weather, good food (did I mention that I convinced Leah to try some of my salmon and she liked it?! I was really excited about that), and good company. I was so glad that Leah was there to enjoy it with me and the boys. It was definitely a very large and crowded city, and definitely somewhere that I could never live, but an awesome place for a visit. 

The reality of living in 300 square feet.

I have all these super amazing pictures that I can't wait to share with you all. But right now they're all on the iMac and Matt is working this morning, so I can't really get to them. But I promise, we have done some really amazing things in the last two weeks. The redwood national forest, San Francisco, and visit from my super fabulous sister.

But, like I said, I can't get to my pictures right now. So you all have the great pleasure (or not, because it's probably pretty dry and rambley) of learning about what life is really like living in such a teeny tiny space.

First of all, let me say that for the most part, it's actually better than I was expecting. We still have a couch, a kitchen table, a fridge, sink, oven/stove, shower and toilet. And a queen sized bed. (Now it's like you're reading a craigslist ad for an apartment.)

I'm pretty good at organizing, so storing our stuff hasn't been a huge issue. all the kids blankets go under the pull out couch during the day, the TV goes in the storage under our bed when we're driving.  We pretty much have to strictly follow the rule "a place for everything and everything in its place". We have plenty of room for books and games and lego. Obviously just the downsized stacks of books and games and lego. The rest are in storage back home.

So for the most part, it's fine. But once in a while we run in to....problems. Like how there's one toilet for 5 people. And one of those people is recently potty trained. And how the clothes closet opens up right into the bathroom and also our bedroom. It's pretty much the definition of bottleneck when people are trying to get ready in the morning or for bed. Lots of people have had their toes stepped on and fingers shut into doors and cupboards.

The kitchen table turns into Oliver's bed. It's actually pretty easy to make into the bed. Not so easy to turn back to the table. At least not easy if you're under 6 feet tall. There's a weird angle and you have to perfectly latch the table to the wall. Anyway, it's usually Matt's job. But last week he had to leave at like 6 am to get to a conference in San Francisco. It was St. Patrick's day, and in our house we have a Lucky Charms for breakfast tradition. So I made the table (I thought), poured huge bowls of Lucky Charms and milk, and everyone sat down to eat.

Then, the table buckled, fell from the wall, and spilled Lucky Charms and milk EVERYWHERE. Sawyer was trapped under the table where it fell on his leg. I saved him, dropped the table, and scraped up our lovely hardwood. Sawyer was upset because his leg hurt and he was covered in milk. So he took his pants off. I was trying to clean up the floor, but the stupid marshmallows were expanding in the stupid milk and getting everything sticky and pastel coloured. Sawyer was so upset by this point that he peed. Like a whole freaking liter. All over the floor. And cereal. So now the floor was covered in milk, cereal, marshmallows, and pee. Everyone was screaming, myself included. Let me remind you that this is a very small space and it's virtually impossible to clean a floor so small without just being right in the mess. Eventually I got it all cleaned up. And then Hayden pipes in with an ever so sweet "am I EVER going to get to eat breakfast?!" I managed to get them each a small bowl of the remaining Lucky Charms, and went to take a shower. Yuck. Then I realized that we had gone swimming the night before and the only clean towel was used by Matt that morning and was soaking wet. It was a super fun morning.

So yeah. Sometimes stuff like that happens. But so far, the good has outweighed the bad. (Except for on Tuesday, when Matt was hooking up our sewer hose to the drain, it backed up on him. Yes. The black water tank backed up on him. Like everywhere. It took a few hours and a whole lot of bleach to get it fixed. But we had a very kind RV neighbour who took him to the RV store and helped get everything we needed.)

But we're still happy. Today we are going down to the little shops near Avila beach to find the bookshop and the ice cream parlour. Life is good.

-Jessica

The Oregon Coast

Ahhhhh. Seriously you guys. This week has been so fantastic I almost feel bad telling you all about it. Almost.

On Monday, we left Washington in a torrential downpour. Matt wasn't very excited about driving in all the rain, but once we got to Olympia, it had totally cleared up. We stopped to do a bit of shopping and stock up on some groceries. And let me tell you, it is cheap here in the good old US of A! I couldn't believe the price of the milk. It's like $2.50 for a 4 litre jug. Cheap! I love it! So we totally went crazy and even let the kids pick whatever cereal they wanted. Captain Crunch with berries. Ha. Berries. Right. So I pretended it was gross and then ate it for dessert.

Anyway, from there we took this amazing bridge from Washington to Oregon. It was huge and gorgeous.

Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. So then we went to our KOA and got settled. 

(Sidenote...if you have never stayed at a KOA, you really should. Tonight we are at our third, and they're pretty fantastic. Awesome playgrounds, clean showers, laundry, wifi, the works.)

The next morning, we headed down the road because we were told there was a nice beach there. Nice didn't even begin to describe it! It was stunning. Gorgeous sand, brilliant blue waves, and a shipwreck. The kids were in heaven. 

Isn't that just the coolest shipwreck?

Love his crazy hair in this one. 

Ok. All these pictures are of him. But he's just so darn cute. 

It was just so great. Then we went back to the campsite and swam and sat in the hot tub. Matt made burgers while the kids played at the park. Did I mention it's only March? As in still winter? Its was like 18 degrees. Fantastic. 

Next day we packed up and started driving along Hwy 101. It follows the Oregon Coastline all the way down, and it does not disappoint. It is just breathtaking. There are all these adorable little coastal towns and some really great lookout points too. So we stopped at some. 

And then we went to Cannon Beach. Sigh. I'll just let the pictures speak. They're much more eloquent than I am. 

So there it is (in a teeny, tiny nutshell)- the Oregon coast. Natural, earthy, awe-inspiring beauty. 

Tomorrow- the Californian Redwoods!

And we're off!!

Yesterday was the day!

We woke up bright and early (like 5 am early) and set off! We had to be at the ferry early to go through customs. It was a lovely, rainy, west coast day. As the ferry pulled out of the beautiful Victoria harbour, I felt a slight wrench in my stomach. Mostly excitement, but nerves too. Oliver and Sawyer were giddy with excitement, but Hayden was having a rougher time saying goodbye to his hometown.

So Matt took him for a quiet one on one walk around the ferry while I went inside so the others could run around a little. He was okay after a while. Poor little man just feels so much. And I love him for it. After we arrived in Port Angeles, we met my Dad and Step-mum for lunch and then headed back to their place.

If there's anyplace to begin a trip, this is it. They have possibly the most beautiful ocean view around.  It's impossible to not feel peaceful here. Their backyard is a beach, so Matt is down there with the boys right now, running around in the rain. It's fantastic. Combine that, with the incredible food (two fabulous cooks living here) and it's a straight-up vacation.

The one little big hiccup is that we discovered, on the Saturday before leaving, that there was a hole in our hot water tank. Serves us right for not checking it sooner. We didn't have time to deal with it before leaving, but luckily my dad has a guy for everything. I didn't even need to ask him if he had an RV guy (he doesn't even own an RV), I just said "Dad, can you call your RV guy for us?" and he got us in right away. They ordered a new one for us, and putting in in tomorrow morning. I'm glad we budgeted for repairs because this one is a doozy! I asked Matt how much it was, and this conversation happened:

"Wow."
"How much is wow?"
"Right in between ouch and boiiiing ".

100 points if you get that reference.

Anyway, I'm jut glad we discovered it while here rather than on the road. And we're still on schedule. Next stop- cousins!!