Brunson Family Adventures: August 2009

Monday, August 24, 2009

Happy Anniversary

Friday was our 11th Wedding Anniversary. We made reservations at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and planned to spend a half-day at Disneyland. We had a fun surprise when we checked in that afternoon. We were randomly selected as the "celebration family of the day"and our queen room was upgraded to a king suite!

The balcony was amazing. We had a perfect view of the fireworks. Our room was on the end of the wing so it had a balcony on the west and wrapped around to the north. Here is the view from the Disneyland side.

Here is the view from the California Adventure side.

Surprise!

I'm 3 months pregnant!

Back to School

August 10th

First Day of School

Jared and Serenity on the first day of school. Jared is in 4th grade this year and Serenity is starting Kindergarten.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Sant Cruz

Santa Cruz Boardwalk
Wednesday night we went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. My dad used to come here when he was a boy and he told us all about the "brass ring" merry-go-round.

Serenity and Jared getting ready for the ride to start.

Robert grabbing a brass ring.

Jared trying to get the brass ring into the clown's mouth.

Capitola

We drove into Capitola Thursday morning to get breakfast at the famous "Gayle's bakery". Then we walked through some of the shops. Just before we left Shane and I walked down to the wharf and snapped a pic of us with all the fun Mediterranean style houses that line the beach.

Sunset State Beach - Santa Cruz

Halfway through the week we drove to Santa Cruz and stayed at Sunset State Beach. On our way down the coast we stopped at Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

Mom and Dad

Shane and Jessica

Sunset State Beach

Shane & Jessica

Serenity

Jared

Robert and Jared building sand-castles

Mom & Dad

Serenity and Grandma riding scooters.

Pez Museum and the Jelly Belly Factory

Pez Museum

Jelly Belly Factory

San Francisco

Point Bonita Lighthouse

I love visiting lighthouses and this hike to Point Bonita Lighthouse is now my favorite! Its a half-mile hike to the lighthouse. The trail leads down to the big rock where you walk through a tunnel and out the other side of the rock, then you cross a bridge to get to the farther rock. (click on the pic to have a better look.) Then you walk across one last bridge (you can't see it in this picture) to get to the lighthouse. Here is Serenity on the trail.

Shane and Jessica kissing at the end of the tunnel.

Robert and Jared on the first bridge. You can see the second bridge and the lighthouse in the background.

This is the waiting area to cross the last bridge over to the lighthouse. You can just see the golden gate bridge covered in fog behind us.

This is the opposite side of the waiting area with the bridge and lighthouse behind us. The bridge is old and rickety so they only let two people walk across at a time.

Serenity and my dad walking across the bridge.

There are lots of rocks below where the sea lions like to lay.

San Francisco Maritime Museum

The kids found a boat sitting in the sand on our way to the maritime museum.

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

We had lunch at Bubba Gump's. Serenity and my dad with Bubba Gump's box of chocolates.

Ghirardelli Square

San Francisco's Talking Toilets

My mom couldn't wait to check out the famed "talking toilets".

Half Moon Bay - Beach Camping

The last week of July we planned a beach camping trip with my family (Mom, Dad, Robert & Elizabeth). The first place we stayed was in Half Moon Bay, just outside of San Francisco.

We had the best site in the whole camp, it was on the beach side and the kids loved climbing the trees above our tent.

San Francisco really is the foggiest place, even in the summer. It was cool and foggy EVER day and never got warmer than 60 degrees, except the day we left (it was sunny and 70).