California Road Trip!

We are so happy that we decided to take Savanna with us to California and make a full week of it.  Besides our honeymoon we have decided that it was the next best trip that we have ever taken.  For some reason I was not nervous about the 5.5 hour flight, I was really nervous about the time change.  I had nightmares of Savanna waking up at 3am and wanting to go to bed at 4pm and us never being able to do anything.  Overall the flights weren't too bad but out of the 2 they ended up being harder than the time changes.  She didn't sleep a wink on the way out and slept only half the flight on the way back and cried for the entire first half.  The only good thing about her not sleeping on the planes is that since she was tired it helped put her back on the times that we needed.  It only took a day for her to get on schedule in California, it actually almost felt too easy.  When we returned it took about a full week to get her back on schedule, but only 1 or 2 bad nights.  So now I want to tell you all about the fun details of our trip!  We flew into San Francisco on Saturday evening and drove straight to my friend Chrissie's house in Monterey where we stayed for the next two days.  While we were there we drove the 17 Mile Drive and had lunch at Pebble Beach where we got the great family shot below.    

My friend Chrissie has a son who is 1 1/2 so we all went to the aquarium one day which was a ton of fun!  It was so nice to just spend time with an old friend with both of our families!

On Tuesday morning we started our drive south along Route 1.  The Big Sur lived up to all the hype.  It had some of the most amazing views that we have ever seen! Although, it was a full 90 miles of cliff driving so slightly nerve racking and took even longer than we thought. The elephant seals just before San Simeon were incredible! As a break for Savanna and some lunch we stopped at Avila Valley Barn.  They had tons of animals for Savanna to look at, pony rides for older kids and lots of shady grass which was perfect!  They also had delicious sandwiches, salads and produce.

 

We then drove to Santa Barbara, where we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Santa Barbara was gorgeous, especially the pier and great for our overnight stay.  With Savanna, the only thing that we could not add into our itinerary was a wine tour.  Santa Barbara has an Urban Wine Tour which was perfect for us.  There are a bunch of wineries right in the heart of the city (some own their own vineyards and some just buy and blend their grapes from other vineyards).  We were able to walk to them from our hotel.  

On Wednesday we started our journey to San Diego.  We stopped in Venice Beach for lunch and had a lovely visit with one of my friends from growing up.

The only awful part of the drive was from LA to San Diego the 2 hour drive took us a full 4!!!  It was HORRIBLE!  We made it just in time for a fast dinner before we had to get Savanna to bed.  The wedding festivities (the whole reason we started the trip) started on Thursday evening with a bbq and fireworks for July 4th in Mission beach.  During the day we went over to Coronado for the parade which was really cool to see and a great place to be on the 4th! Before we made our way to Carlsbad (where the wedding was) we went to the San Diego Zoo.  It was really crowded and we did a lot but only made it through about half because we had to get Savanna down for a nap and be on our way. 

The wedding was for one of Chris's good friends from lacrosee at Johns Hopkins.  There was a great group of Hopkins friends there and it was fun to see some of our friends that live on the west coast who we rarely get to see.  The wedding was at the La Costa Resort and Spa and was absolutely stunning!  A bonus was La Costa was a great place for kids and Savanna had a blast in the 3 different kiddie pools they had!