BoJo Family: Planes, trains, and automobiles

We took our first vacation as a family a few weeks ago. We went to California and visited friends and the beautiful pacific coast. We have been planning it for months and originally we were going to drive there, but in the end we decided that driving combined with Aria's hate for the car seat was probably not a good idea, and certainly not our idea of "relaxing". So, we bought plane tickets into and out of California, and took the train where we could or rented a car where train service was unavailable. All in all, we did about 8 hrs of driving (total), which was a lot more reasonable. Aria does so well in airplanes, and she LOVES the train. The car she hates, but we only drove while she was sleeping, so it wasn't that bad.
We started our trip by flying into Burbank and catching the train up to Santa Barbara where we stayed for 5 nights with our friends Kara and Rob. We happened to be there over the solstice celebration weekend, so our stay was filled with lots of parades, dances and shows. We also visited the Santa Barbara Zoo, which Aria LOVED!!!

After that, we caught a train up to Monterey and stayed with our best friend Jake for 3 nights. Monterey is a cute sleepy community on the ocean of mostly retirees. Jake's house was huge and so nice and he lives so close to downtown and the beach, that we ended up walking everywhere. It was so relaxing there and Aria loved getting into the ocean water with all the other kids, even thought it was super cold.

Alas, it was time to say good bye, and so we rented a car (a giant Jeep Commander) and drove up to Sea Ranch to meet up with our dear friends Evan and Gina and their adorable son Adrian. Sea Ranch (a few hours north of San Francisco) is so beautiful and serene. Gina and her family are so generous to let us stay there and relax! Aria absolutely fell in love with Adrian and she adores Evan! She also loves mama Gina and her delicious cooking. We had a blast at Sea Ranch and it was soooo good to catch up with our old friends. We stayed there for 5 days, which never seems long enough when you're having fun! We came home after two weeks of vacationing and we came back refreshed, relaxed and ready to face all of the projects waiting for us at home. Thanks everybody for making our first vacation as a family so special!

California, here we come!

Wait, where am I? This isn't my home! Even though we were worried that Aria wouldn't sleep well in her new surroundings, she did so well! I think she even slept better than at home!

Arusia loves Kara!

Santa Barbara - first time ever getting dipped into the ocean. She loved it!

Santa Barbara Zoo

Adios Kara and Rob! We had such a good time seeing you and hanging out... We hope we'll see you again soon!

Beautiful Monterey!

Monterey Aquarium. Not Aria's favorite... she did love all the kids though. She even found a family with 3 kids and hung with them for about 30 minutes. I guess fish are boring to a 14 month old.