A mini-camping trip and a trip to Monterey, CA

Back in November decided to take the boys camping. We had to laugh because it wasn't really in the wilderness, you could see houses from our campground, but it was close enough to the real thing for two little boys. I would love to camp more with our family but we need to invest in some camping equipment. Like sleeping bags. It actually got pretty cold at night and both Seth and I woke up several times during the night FREEZING. We had the boys between us with the bulk of the blankets and they seemed to sleep fine. We were close enough to civilization that we just hopped in the car in the morning, drove to breakfast, and then came back to take down our tent. The night before we did manage to cook our dinner of hot dogs over the fire with coat hangers. See? We need real camping gear so we can do it the right way. Like dutch oven style. Anyway, here are some pictures:

At the beginning of December, Seth had an interview in Monterey, CA. He had to use one of his vacation weeks for it, so we made a family trip out of it. We spent the first two days of the trip at Disneyland. The highlight of this particular Disney trip was when Taft got picked to be a Jedi trainee in Tomorrowland. He was so stinking excited. He got to fight Darth Vader with a light saber and later asked if we thought it was the real Darth Vader.

Monterey is GORGEOUS. Oh my. So Gorgeous. We loved it up there. We decided against taking the Monterey job at this point in our life, but man, it would be awesome to live there. During Seth's interview day, the boys and I drove about an hour north to have brunch with my cousin Katie in San Jose.

In line at Disney.

We never see Seth in the mornings in our regular life, so having him around in the mornings on vacation is extra special.

The water! This picture doesn't do it justice. It was so clear. To the left there is a cove and we saw a group of seals and a few seal pups. It was cute to see the pups sneaking off into the water to play with the grown ups slept.