The title is purely for the purpose of rubbing Texas proud people the wrong way... like my husband.
But really, what could be better than a vacation away from the Texas heat and humidity? A vacation that takes you to California and home to visit parents, family, and friends of course! And thats just what I got. The break was much needed and much too short.
I flew in on August 18th, my mom's birthday. My parents and my brother and sister, Tom and Anna, picked me up from the San Fransisco airport around 4:30ish. We picked up Highway 1, the pacific coast highway, and drove down to Half Moon Bay. My mom is a marine biologist. She did a lot of snorkeling and tide pool research while in school at BYU Hawaii. Half Moon Bay has some great tide pools, and our timing was perfect with the low tide. It was so much fun exploring the pools, checking out hermit crabs, star fish, crabs, California muscles (not to be confused with dudes on the beach), rocks, snails, poking at sea anemones, and watching the see lions out of the furthest rocks. I really love the ocean. There are so many different, interesting, and beautiful things in it.
These were my favorite hermit crab shells there. They were vibrantly orange in and out of the water.
My sister spotted this cool purple crab crawling around. It looked pink in the water. But once you pulled it out, it was purple. Pretty nifty. We kept telling Tom that it as long as he grabbed it from behind, it couldn't pinch his fingers off. He was very brave. Once we pulled it out of the water though, we found that someone or something had already pulled the crabs pinchers off, so Tom really had nothing to be brave about!
After leaving the tide pools, we continued on highway one, just enjoying the view of the drive, and looking for a place for dinner. We ended up at a restaurant right on the cliff. We ate outside looking out over a beautiful ocean view. The food was great, lots of fish, seafood, and chowder of course. It was fun to just sit and talk to my family. We're really silly when we're together, laughing over old things we used to do and teasing each other. We talked over ways to convince Russell to move out there after medical school.
For my mom's birthday, my older brother, Tom, compiled pictures of our family and created a slide show. My brother's goal for this slide show was to "make mom cry". He did an amazing job and was able to accomplish the mom crying goal. It was the perfect mix of humor and serious. It was fun to watch the pictures of us kids growing up together, as well as pictures from old family vacations. The night was nearly perfect. The only thing that could have made it better was if my younger brother, Scott, was there. But thats ok, he's on his mission like he should be.
Two more things I will really miss about home: eating perfectly ripe peaches (my favorite fruit) right off the tree and cool crisp-air nights wrapped tightly in blankets.
She fit right in. She was here for her birthday, so we bought her one of those big balloon towers at HEB. It was interesting getting that home in a truck full of people. It only fit with the window open. She also flew out to Washington with the rest of us for new years. She's been tons of fun to hang out with and get to know. I'm excited for the years ahead of family get togethers to get to know her even more.
