California Here We Come! Part 1

Warning: This is a travelogue.  If you get bored with a lot of pictures and very little wit then this post is not for you.  Although it does include a few funny moments. Read at your own risk.

On Monday, June 21st we left for California with a chihuahua, a grandma, two kids and a pregnant lady shoved inside a Hyundai.


The kids spent most of the time watching movies on the i-pods:

And the dog spent most of her time snuggled between grandma and Ema:

We spent the first night in Mojave, California in a Motel 6 that sat next to the railroad tracks.  We checked into the motel around 7pm and crashed pretty hard.  We were all tucked into bed with the lights out and we hear Ema say, "This bed is as hard as a rock".  So true, my little princess, so true!

Here's a picture of my sweet grandma and I getting ready to leave Mojave behind:

When traveling with so many people, you have to make A LOT of stops.  Food, water, bathroom, walking, stretching, etc.  It takes a very long time to get from point A to point B, but we made it to our first stop: 

FRESNO

Justin's Aunt and Cousin run a swim school in Fresno that we've never seen.  It was amazing and I would love to have a place in Dixie for our kids to take swim lessons year round.  Here is Justin with his cousin Nick that he hasn't seen for years.  And Ema, Bracken and Jessi:

We left Fresno in perfect timing to hit Sacramento during rush hour traffic.  That was fun. Two days of travel for a 12 hour trip makes for some cranky people.  We were all glad to have made it safe and still friends to our next stop: 

Sacramento

Since we had spent TWO FULL DAYS in the car we decided to take it easy for a day.  Down the street from where we were staying was a fish hatchery.  Since the kids had never been to one, we decided to take them on down.  For some reason, this fish head was hilarious to us.

The fish in this place were unbelievable.  They're all packed together in the water and they go berserk when you throw them fish food.  I mean, literally psycho trying to get that food.  It's like they're starved and mad:

Here's a close-up of the fish: 

Very cool.  And I hate fish.  

Funny story:  We have this underwater camera and Justin thought it would be cool if we could get a picture of them under the water.  Great idea (in theory), but these fish are CRAZY and when anything (like a hand) enters the water, they think its food.  So, you can see how blurry the picture is as Justin was trying to fight off hungry fish:

To be continued . . .