finally! after a few months on the california coast, it was time to make our way inland. from oceano, we were heading to death valley national park, about 5 hours away. we decided to split the drive up, traveling a few hours to ridgecrest to spend the night at walmart and then go into death […]
hazel
avila beach. cold beaches and aquariums.

for two weeks, we were sort of near the beach, but sort of over the beach. and the weather was cold and windy and not very tiny-beach-goer friendly. but, on our last day on the coast, i felt like we at least had to make a go of it. the girls were game. isaac was […]
pacific dunes ranch. boring stuff.

after our stay in carpinteria, we were supposed to head inland, to a thousand trails rv park a bit northeast of santa barbara. but. we had read that the internet was non-existent, so we changed course. derek found us a spot at pacific dunes rv resort, a few hours north, still on the coast, in […]
little denmark, usa. (aka: solvang, ca).

while perusing pinterest and other pockets of the internet for interesting things to do with kids in california, a little town called solvang kept popping up. basically, from what i understand, it was settled/invented/created by some danish folks from the midwest, who wanted a winter retreat in warm and sunny california. its now pretty much […]
theannababy turns EIGHT!!

yesterday, this tiny human turned eight. she’s turning into a super cool medium sized human, right before my eyes. she is adventurous and curious and smart and thoughtful and funny and creative. she loves wildlife and nature and art and minecraft and camping and hiking and rock climbing. she wants to be a geologist or […]
whale watching and mission touring.(california adventures with new gramma).

for our big cool adventure while my mom was here, we planned a whale watching trip. derek found a groupon, and even though it was late in the migration season, there were still daily whale sightings and we had high hopes of seeing some cool stuff. look at everyone, all excited for our trip: everything […]
new gramma visits california beaches.

my mom had big plans to come visit us in june in yosemite national park. but, when western new york winter lingered on and on and on, she looked into changing her flight to come see us while we were on the california coast. she joined us while we were at thornhill broome and then […]
channel islands visitor center.

so. the story goes, that anna and i had a trip booked to camp on anacapa islands in the channel islands national park. but, just before we were set to go, we chickened out. an earthquake. no shelter from sun. aggressive birds. no internet. no escape until our ferry came back. winds. low temps at […]
ronald reagan presidential library.

at each new location, we do a lot of research about things to do in the area, and then we plan accordingly, timing the things derek wants to do on the weekends and the things he’s less interested in for our weekday activities. while we were at thornhill broome, the top item on his agenda […]
thornhill broome campground happenings.

once again, after weeks of exciting adventures, and not so great internet, i find myself waaaay behind in blogging. at our current spot, we have decent internet, the weather isn’t great, and there’s not a ton of stuff to do in the immediate vicinity, so hopefully, i can catch up completely while we inhabit this […]