California, In Pictures

I’ve already posted some pictures of our vacation to California, but there are so many more! Jesse was taking pictures like crazy and his turned out really great with the fancy camera. Here’s a few (or a lot) of our favorite things:

It’s hard to pick, but I think my favorite parts of vacation was visiting all the places we used to frequent years ago. I’m a very sentimental and memory loving person, so seeing my old house and old town was high on my priorities for while we were there. Plus I wanted Jesse to see all my old favorite places.

Rancho sign

A walk down memory lane, our old neighborhood

Jesse and me at the lake

The family at the lake

Jesse and me appreciating the mountains

Andrew and Nicole chasing birds

We loved seeing these purple trees everywhere

We gawked at the Bugatti Veyron and the fancy shops along Rodeo Drive

Jesse thoroughly enjoyed his Pink

We took a drive through Hollywood

The family overlooking the Hollywood hills

We were all so excited for the graduation events. We managed to score front row seats for both the hooding ceremony and the graduation ceremony. I’m pretty sure Ashley’s friends thought we were a little crazy. We had our seats so early that we got to watch the rehearsal too. Dad was giving all Ashley’s classmates high fives as they passed us to take their seats. But our craziness paid off with some great pictures!

The main event

Ashley getting hooded

Ashley after hooding

Dad checking Ashley's hood

Ashley hooded

Ashley laughing at our crazy family

Ashley's hand shake

Ashley receiving her diploma

Ashley exiting graduation

Ashley with proud parents

Ashley with proud siblings

After the graduation festivities, Ashley was able to join us for more site seeing and remembering of memories.

The beach we loved going to for years

Beautiful beach view

Mom and Dad enjoying the beach

We've always laughed at this triangular house, no piece of land goes unused

View driving down Pacific Coast Highway

Ruby

La Jolla Cove waves crashing

La Jolla Cove seals soaking up the sun

La Jolla Cove beach

Jesse and me at La Jolla Cove

Hang gliders over the ocean

The bridge to Coronado Island

We thought the valet parking for boats was too funny

Andrew and Nicole at Coronado Beach

The girls on Coronado Island

The boys on Coronado Island

The boys being told to take a funny picture... Andrew looks the same

The boys being told to be funnier

Me shopping on Coronado Island

View of the San Diego runway from the top of the famous parking garage

Jesse and me imitating the famous Unconditional Surrender statue

Is that enough pictures for you? Do you feel like you were there too? We really had such a great time. Now we are back home and back to real life. However, not back to our normal sleeping schedule. Adjusting to the time change has been much more difficult coming home than it was when we got out there. It was really hard to get up this morning, but I’m still up later than normal again. Just think, in three years Ashley will be getting her doctoral degree and we’ll get to do it all over again. We loved California!

Vacation: Beaches

Today we enjoyed getting to see some fabulous beach views. After sleeping in a little and checking out of our hotel in La Mirada, we made our way back to our original San Diego hotel. Our first stop was Corona del Mar. This was the beach we always used to go to for swimming. We enjoyed looking at the fancy houses around that area, I can’t imagine how much the must cost. It was so pretty to look out at the ocean view. I wish it would have been warm enough to go swimming, but it was pretty chilly. The breeze felt nice, but with the temperature being a little lower right near the water I needed a jacket to walk around.

Corona del MarHouses

Then we continued our drive down Pacific Coast Highway to Ruby’s for lunch. Ruby’s is my favorite California restaurant. I haven’t minded too much having to eat my own food at restaurants so for until we got to Ruby’s. I had a hard time deciding if I should just eat it anyways. In the end I decided not to, I knew I would feel really sick if I did. I’m really glad that Jesse was able to eat it for the first time though. That was the one place I really wanted him to eat.

Ruby's

After checking in to our hotel and unloading our luggage, we drove over to La Jolla Cove to take in some more ocean views. It’s so funny to watch all the seals that like to gather there. We watched them swim on and off the beach and enjoy all the attention they were getting from their viewers.

La Jolla CoveSeals

It was great to just watch all the waves crashing into the shore. I really miss getting to watch waves at home. Amazing!!

WavesCoast