...and now the real fun begins!

The last two weeks have been a blur..I feel like we have been go, go go trying to fit in everything, afraid we're going to miss something incredible...then knowing we probably are....

We left San Francisco and headed to Yosemite, this was what Johnny was looking forward to the most. I have to admit, I was kind of ho hum about going, (after everything we have seen how could this possibly top it?). Was I ever wrong! This place was incredible...in my top 5 favourite of the whole trip, (I will give everyone's top 5 in another post)....El Capitan, Glacier Point, waterfall after waterfall, half dome, the village. This was the prettiest campground we stayed at by far, (lower pines, we had to book MONTHS ago).  We had an amazing time hiking and exploring, we wish we extended that potion of our trip longer.

After Yosemite, we stayed at a KOA in Monterey, I really wanted to see Big Sur, but due to a huge landslide, a section of the road is closed for the next year so we had to alter our route a bit. I have heard about the beauty of Monterey and sadly I was a little underwhelmed, very pretty for sure, just not the wow that I have been seeing the last couple of weeks. I have been told Big Sur is definitely the WOW factor of the area and am sorry we missed it. We did go to the Monterey Aquarium, which was the highlight, we all loved it.

From Monterey we stayed in Pismo Beach- pretty cool little surfer town, we were lucky there was a Billabong surf festival while we were there and we got to watch the under 17 aerial  competition...pretty amazing!

From Pismo we headed to LA. We stayed in Long Beach for 4 days and crammed in a ton....from Hollywood, to Beverly Hills, Malibu (El Matador State Park) Venice Beach (where I got to meet up with one of my besties who happened to be in LA the same time!), Newport Beach, Hunting Beach and finally Universal Studios. We all had a great time but I really feel like I need to come back, thinking there was still a heap of things I did not not do.

Finally we arrived in San Diego, our last leg of our North American tour. We were told to be sure to visit La Jolla Cove, so we set off in the morning to explore...after reading the reviews we made sure to bring our snorkel gear and off we went. This place was amazing! The wildlife was incredible with so many seals and sea lions almost within reach. Snorkeling was great considering where we were. The kids had a ball and saw tons of fish and 5 seal pups even swam about 4 ft from Johnny and Liv playing around giving them a free underwater show.  Next day my dad and step mom came to stay for a couple of days where we are exchanging keys with them so they can drive the trailer home. We did the San Diego Zoo today which was great, and now here I am sitting on the eve before we leave Panama in the morning, feeling....mixed emotions.

The last two months have been awesome, I never would have thought we all would have gotten along as well as we have. I think its because there is very little mundane. Every day is a new adventure, with something exciting around the corner, (although we have realized all the kids really want is a pool).  Don't get me wrong it's not all rainbows and unicorns. The girls grumble about school work (I make them do 2 hours every day mon-fri) there are fights and boredom, tears and occasional loneliness (Liv misses her friends, we all miss Jess and REALLY miss Stewie), but for the most part we have all been truly happy and I think we will look back on this time together and realize how special it really was.

La Jolla San Diago

Huntington Beach

Universal

Venice Beach

Grauman's Chinese theatre Hollywood

Malibu- El Matador State Park

Monterey- 9 mile drive

Monterey

Glacier Point

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Yosemite

Yosemite