Road Trip!

Last week the kids and I joined some of James' family for a Finlay Road trip party to the San Francisco Bay area. James had to stay home and work.

We stayed at a hostel in the Marin Headlands National Park located just across the bridge from the city. It was amazing at how quiet and empty the area was compared to the city life that was not far away. The building you see behind the kids is the hostel. It was built originally to be World War 2 officer housing. With the fog and older building we felt like we were in a ghost town.

The big kids were SO excited to be able to sleep on the top bunks at the hostel. We had the two moms and four kids all sharing a room, but we did surprisingly enough get some sleep.

These are our road trip companions. The cousins got along really well on the 7 hour drive each direction. Of course after adding planned potty stops, emergency side-of-the road potty stops and wiggle breaks the 7 hours took much longer, but we made it.

The whole traveling crew

We took a short hike to see the lighthouse at Point Reyes. We'll have to go back again though because it was closed the day we went so we couldn't tour the inside. Ethan was trying hard to tear down the fence so we could walk the 300+ steps down to the lighthouse, but he wasn't quite strong enough.

The visitors center museum had some fantastic hands-on exhibits for the kids. (well I admit, the hands-on stuff is still fun for me too)

This great climbing tree had a perfect hole in the center that acted as a play pen to keep the kids contained for a few minutes.

We stopped at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento where our cousin Erin works. The kids were very impressed with the dragon.

We taste tested the icecream at Ghirardelli and here at Fentons Icecream Parlor in Vacaville to see which was better. Ethan was hoping he didn't have to share.

Outside Fentons is a great play area for the kids. Ethan loved pretending to drive. Brielle was old enough to realize that the cars moved for other kids (who's parents put the money in) but not for us. I just told her we were spending our money on the ice cream instead. She was fine with that idea.

We went on some beautiful hiking trails.

And we all had a whole lot of fun!