Dreaming of California

Kids are back to school and we are trying to get back to our regular routine, but I am not ready to let go of Summer yet.

During Summer we took two trips and I realized that I haven't shared the pictures with you. The first trip was just Mr. TRH and I for our 20th Anniversary.

I love to travel. If I had no physical limitations and an unlimited budget, I would be all over the place. Mr. TRH on the other hand, is a homebody. He is totally happy and content to stay home.

I love big cities and lots of activities. He doesn't like big cities and wants to relax.

It was not easy to pick the destination that would accommodate both of our needs. Some people recommended Monterey and when I did some reserch of my own I was more and more excited about the idea. What we decided to do was to visit Monterey, San Jose and San Francisco. I have never been to all those cities and we thought we could have a great time at laid back Monterey and big city San Francisco.

Did I enjoy the trip you might ask?... Oh, yes. VERY MUCH!

We love spending time with each other but it is so hard to find quality time in the regular day to day schedule. During the drive to Monterey we were talking (without getting interrupted!), laughing, and listening to books on CDs. The whole trip was fun, but I adore the time we spent in the car as well. Not to mention that we love making stops here and there to try new restaurants and food along the way. We had all you can eat Crab for lunch and we were in heaven!

I planned this trip on a budget, but I wanted to stay at a nice hotel. When we got married we didn't have a fancy honeymoon trip, so this was a chance for us to do that.

Growing up near the ocean, I really miss this view. What a pretty sight... waking up to an ocean view put me in such a happy mood every morning while we were there.

We did visit an antique mall(although it wasn't Mr. TRH's choice of activity he was such a good sport about it), we did a 17 mile scenic drive, and ate at some of the really good restaurants. We definitely want to go back to Monterey. There are so many water sports and other activities that our kids will love, it will be a perfect place for the family to vacation too.

We have a friend in San Jose, he and his friend gave us a tour one day. Again, we ate at amazing Mexican and Thai restaurants, and visited the beautiful Japanese garden. It was beautiful and relaxing, I felt like I was transported to Japan.

One of the highlights was when they took me to a big fabric store! It was not the garment district, but hey, I was so giddy going through their selection.

Another place they took us was the Winchester Mystery House. At first I didn't realized where we were then it hit me, "OH!" I remembered watching about this place on the History channel before. The mansion is beautiful, yet very bizarre....

Driving around the town to see Victorian style homes was so much fun too, I enjoy looking at architecture and many different flowers I normally don't see here in Utah.

Then, The last place was San Francisco. To be precise I have been to San Francisco years ago, just at the airport. Mr. TRH wasn't too thrilled about this idea because we were driving and didn't know the roads. I was suppose to be the navigator, but it was so hard to focus!! I was in one of the cities I always wanted to visit. looking at tall buildings, pretty architecture along the rolling hills; how can I focus? I was ohh-ing and Ahh-ing a lot. I wish we had several days to walk around to take more pictures and sketch some of the homes.

One of the places we went was Japan town. There we visited their dollar store (seriously, you will love some of the stuff you can find at the Japanese dollar store) ate at a Sushi restaurant, spent a good amount of time at Kinokuni-ya which is a book store; I was drooling over at so many books... oh how I wished I could have bought the whole store.

I haven't been to Kaiten-sushi (sushi-go-around) for years, it took me a couple rounds to finally grab the plate of sushi I wanted. It was going faster than I remembered!

Then of course, the Golden Gate Bridge... I don't think I am the only one who had the theme song of "Full House" playing in my head while visiting San Francisco. Rachel has been watching reruns of Full House. When she found out that we are going to San Fransisco, she asked me to get an autograph from the actors of the show. "Sweetie", I said, "Do you know how long ago that show was aired?" It is so cute how kids think. :)

I know it was a long post with tons of pictures, but it was only a small part of our trip. I am naturally a very curious person, but when I am on a trip my curiosity level is 120%! I want to see, hear, taste, experience; take everything in! I fell in love with all the places we visited, but what made me happy was that I was with my most favorite person the whole world the entire time. I know we will talk about our trip for years to come and every now and then we will dream of California.