Lake Mead

In June we did a little mixing of the families.  My sister and her family flew out to Las Vegas to go boating with us and Sean's parents (who own the boat).  It was a fun weekend seeing the kids experience, for the first time, life on a motor boat.

But first, they experienced Vegas.  They had a time share and spent a few days in the city before we spent a few days on the lake.  Sean and I joined up with them for one day.  Sean hadn't really done the strip so he didn't know what to expect.  He was surprised at how much there was to do.  We walked along the canals at the Venetian, watched the fountain show at the Bellagio and explored the atrium inside the Bellagio.  A trip to Vegas wouldn't be complete without visiting the Welcome to Las Vegas sign.  And of course we went swimming at the hotel pool.

We spent two days enjoying Lake Mead.  The first day was a little overcast but that helped keep the temperatures down.  All the kids tried the knee board even the four year old.  I was so impressed with how they were not scared even with the teasings from my brother-in-law about sharks in the water.  I even got out on the kneeboard.  Sean did both wake boarding and wake skating and we spent plenty of time in the water.  Probably the most enjoyed activity was the innertube!

 

Labor Day Weekend

We started our Labor Day weekend by heading off to Thousand Oaks.  There were a couple of places I wanted to see and we decided that after we saw those places we would stop by Sean's Aunt and Uncle's home nearby for a quick visit.

We first headed to the Gardens of the World.  I read about this place in my AAA magazine and was curious to check it out.  It is a really small place that showcases gardens from Japan, Italy, France, England and also has a California Mission section.  It's quite a beautiful location with large gates that make you feel that you are entering a movie stars house.  They have an informative self guided tour pamphlet that we picked up at their Resource Center.  We spent about 45 minutes there and were pleasantly surprised by what was there.  Even Sean said he enjoyed himself.  If we lived closer it would be some place that I would visit and bring a lunch.

Pagoda in the Japanese Garden

The pagoda peeking out between the trees

French Garden--apparently they are into fountains and this one is a replica of one found at Versailles

Apparently the French are really into symmetry

Mission Garden

Mission Courtyard

They have all 21 missions painted on the walls.  Makes me want to visit them all.

English Perennial Garden

English Rose Garden-I loved the red of these flowers!

PS I didnt get any photos of the Italian garden because there were people in it at the time and it as extremely small

Afterwards we headed to the Chumash Indian Museum.  Oh boy.  I was a tad bit disappointed.  Its obviously a very small museum run by a small staff.  It is completely catered to school kids.  It's a museum with very little information or interpretation.  For school kids who just want to run around and look at all the artifacts that were on display, it was great.  But for the adult who was wanting any history or substantial information on the tribe, you were left very wanting.  It was very neat looking and well put together--just no information.  About a 10 minute walk through the oak trees is a small replica village.  When we got there, there were several kids from a family playing around in homes.  Again no information but I'm sure they have a great school program where interpreters share information with the kids.

The surrounding hills were very green with oak trees

There's a second museum with native history in it so we'll have to go back and visit to see if we can learn more.  It's pretty sad to have such limited resources of the history of the first peoples who inhabited the area.  After the museum we headed to Sean's family's home where we spent the rest of the evening.

On Monday I decided to do an early morning hike with my friend Diane.  I headed to Elsmere, again, because I just like it so much!  I get a great work out and it has decent scenery for the area.  To my chagrin, I came across another snake.  Unsure if this one was a rattler but it still wasn't fun.

Do you spot it?

I tried to zoom in on my phone but it was having a hard time focusing

Later in the day, Sean and I headed to Fort Tejon.  Oh man, what a bummer!  I have a sneaky suspicions that they have great programming...when they have it.  But it was as deserted as .... well I've never been good at clever metaphors but I'm sure you could think of something.  They had a small Self-Guided pamphlet that told you .... nothing.  The few plaques in front of the buildings told you very little.  We did see a chicken coop with several hens.  That's pretty much the most interesting thing I saw.  Oh, and some person was killed by a bear so they buried him under an oak tree.  That's pretty much it.  I can't tell you anything about the history of the fort or why it's important to California history.  What's really sad is it has a lot of great potential.  That is why I think that they have some programming but only do it at certain times.  It is out in the middle of nowhere so I'm assuming not that many people visit.  I wouldn't say "Don't Go" I just would advise you to call ahead.

I got to use my parasol which was fun!

Pretty barren....

By the way, there was a random plaque in a corner of the parking lot that talked about the camels that the military brought in.  They figured they would be suited for the Southwest desert and be able to carry military equipment.  Somehow they learned that they were not good in that kind of desert and so they got handed off to other groups.  I don't know where they ended up but random California history.

Family Vacation in Carlsbad

Sean's family had a family reunion at a vacation rental in Carlsbad.  It couldn't have been in a more perfect location.  Because of work I had to join the family a couple of days into the week long vacation.  It was overcast the first few days which helped with the sun burns but I wasn't prepared for how humid it was.  I don't think I've experienced that kind of humidity in California!  I felt like I was on the East Coast!  Luckily the water was pretty decent.  The last two days were sunny so I was able to go out and enjoy the water.  I realized the last time I had gone bogie boarding was in Hawaii-10 years ago!  It was a lot of fun.

Our vacation rental was right on the beach!

Sean loves making these mounds where they create tunnels for a ball.

The fam!

Everyone helping with the meal.

an and I worry about how unhealthy you feel after vacation from all the eating out so we were glad to help cook a meal while we were there.

Inside of our rental.

I told Sean it was important to go see the San Diego temple so one morning we got up early and made it into the first session.  It was an absolutely gorgeous temple.  I now understand why people want to get married there.  

Camping at Dinkey Creek

Sean knows that I love camping.  He also knows that I love where I grew up camping, Dinkey Creek.  When we talked about going camping I complained to him that I want certain requirements:  it needed to be very wooded and feel like the mountains (So Cal is mainly chaparral and definitely doesn't have that fresh mountain smell) and it needs to have recreational water nearby.  Let's be honest, living in Southern California, its kinda hard to meet these requirements.  Plus a lot of campsites are first come first serve which just causes undue stress on figuring out if you're actually gonna get ANY campsite.  After one particular lament about not having access to good camping (cause Im spoiled) Sean finally said, why don't we just go to Dinkey Creek?  I quickly said yes before he changed his mind.

Dinkey is about 4 hours away from our house so I knew it would be a commitment.  Sean and I also talked about how we want to do vacations with friends so I invited my high school friend Kristin and her family to go camping with us.  I was a little weary because I knew it would be a four hour drive for her too since she lives up north.  I was pleasantly surprised when she said yes!  Yeah!  We were going to Dinkey!

You have to go through the foothills to get to the mountains and Sean kept teasing me that he hadn't seen any trees yet (one of my requirements for good camping).  I told him just wait.  I forgot how fast the terrain changes and soon we were right in the middle of the mountains. As we drove past Shaver and turned on Dinkey Creek Road, Sean admitted it was pretty amazing and beautiful.  And there were trees.  Lots of them.

See lots of trees!

My other requirement for good camping was water access.  I love how there is an accessible creek that is alongside the campground.  We found a small watering hole for ourselves and luckily Kristin's family brought inner tubes which were perfect for relaxing in the water.  I could have spent all day there and was a little sad to leave.

The creek just flows over the rocks which make it so fun to go rock hopping!

This was the little watering hole we found for ourselves.

The water levels were significantly lower than they used to be.  There were more natural rock slides than this.

This is the watering hole we always went to growing up.  The water levels were so low!

You can find any place along the creek to claim as your own.

The tubes were so relaxing.

We also drove to a small grove of Sequoia trees.  It is amazing to see these trees just smack dab in the middle of the Ponderosa Pines.  There arent any other Sequoias in the area.  We learned that Sequoia's are very unique to the Sierra Nevadas.  It made me a little proud to be a Californian and it also made me recommit to the desire of exploring more of the state.

Look at tiny Sean!

Sean was trying to throw acorns through the hole.

This tree was COVERED in carvings.  I also took a family picture here 7 years ago.

I was so happy that my friend Kristin joined us!

Our campsite was perfect for our needs.  Our company was great, our food was great and it felt wonderful to be tucked away in the mountains with no connection to the outside world.  I didn't even think twice about what's happening on Facebook or for that matter, what was happening at home.  

It took us a few tries to get the height just right on our hammock.

Didn't think we would find the Honor System some place other than BYU!

Our campsite.

I grew up playing in these rocks.  This was the view from our tent.

This was how close the neighboring campsite was.  Lucky for us it wasn't occupied.

After we were done camping Sean confessed that Dinkey was pretty amazing.  He now understood why I always talked about it.  He is already planning our next vacation there.

Relaxation!