CA summer vacation

Just about a week ago, we returned from our summer CA adventure.  But it wasn't just our family that took the trip -- the Halls and Aunt Jan took their first trip out to the Bay Area.  9 additional people took residence at my parents' house plus RV parked in the driveway.  The girls greatly enjoyed sleeping in the RV (or Bounder, truck, etc.).

We tried to hit all of the big highlights of the Bay Area for our visitors.  Our itinerary looked like this:

Fri:  get to Fremont at 12:30am local (technically, Saturday).

Sat:  rest and play in the pool (brrr... cold spring in CA this year).

Sun:  church and play in the pool.  I rode Dad's bike up to near the top of Mission Peak.

Mon:  Monterey aquarium (Halls do a whale watching cruise (cold and pitch and rolly))

Tues:  Big Basin to see ginormous Redwood trees

Wed:  SF Giants baseball game (sorry to the A's.  They were out of town most of the week.  And their stadium is lousy now.).

Thur:  Mission Peak hike, with girls.  This was a mistake.  As expected, we had to carry the girls most of the 6 miles.  Unexpectedly, they wanted to play in the dirt or have specific adults carry them.  And their attitudes were poor.  (Upon reflection, this should have been expected)

Fri:  Santa Cruz beach (brrrr.  People often ask if I spent a lot of time at the beach as a kid.  No, for a few reasons:  water is freezing cold, sunburn is ouchy, and the drive to get there is rather sketchy with super curvy roads with much traffic).

Sat:  We stay in Fremont, taking the kids to Lake Elizabeth.  The Halls take a tour of SF.

Sun:  church and big dinner party.  High school friend Emily and her family of 5 along with adopt-a-student Shu joined us plus Lisa's family.  

Mon:  back to IL.

How did we do?  It would have been nice to hit Berkeley or some of the north bay sites (Napa or Point Reyes).  We did quite a bit of driving as it was, so no regrets.

Neither Jill or I have been wanting to take many photos lately.  We did put in some effort on the Big Basin trip.  The massive trees make for some fun backgrounds.  And for some inspiration of awe. 

 Plenty of room inside the biggest of the big trees.

Plenty of room on the 2nd bed in the RV for the girls.  We're thinking about setting up the queen size bed in the kids' room for both kids when Janny outgrows her crib.  We'll put a pool noodle in the middle to maintain sides (and peace).  Will they like it?

On both Sundays we visited the church my sister's family attends.  I have some reservations about attending churches with names like "Resonate" (in Champaign there is something called "Quest".  There is also a "Crusaders" church that still frightens me).  At 9 am on a beautiful sunny day, we walked into the "sanctuary" which looked like what I imagine night clubs are like.  The music was horribly loud.  I was stupified.  Then the pastor started to speak, and I was very impressed.  Either my ears adjusted, or the music wasn't quite as loud the next week.  In conclusion, we were very impressed with the church.  We have no plans to change churches here in Urbana.

Finally, apologies for taking so long to write this (and to write the blog in general).  I've been spending my free evenings watching the NBA playoffs.  The games lately have been amazing.