San Fransico and other California Pictures

San Fransico and the Golden Gate Bridge.

You think I would have learned from last time but I did not and so the pictures are in reverse order again. Sorry.

Here is Kiersten when we got home in her dress from China Town.

Danica and Lynnaea on the top of the train at the Dennis the Menace playground. One of the coolest playgrounds I have ever seen. Kids had a blast. (It is actually in Monterey not SanFran).

Leaving Alcatraz - on the ferry back to SanFran - Danica took this pic.

Alcatraz. It is very run down. They sure don't reinvest the money they make from the tours back into Alcatraz. Or maybe they think it is cooler looking falling apart.

In one of the cells. We were all listening to the audio tour - which was very good- and they talked about bank ROBBERS being locked up. Anders caught that part and he has been dressing up and playing that he is a "ROBIN" ever since!!!

View of the Golden Gate bridge from Alcatraz.

View of SanFran from Alcatraz. It was so hot - the ranger said "welcome to Alcatraz and the hottest day of all of 2010". Yeah - it was scorching.

Inside Alcatraz.

View of the Bay Bridge from the ferry over to Alcatraz. We drove across that bridge on the way home. IT is LONG - the picture only shows half of it.

On the ferry to Alcatraz.

Playing on the beach.

Playing on the beach.

Beautiful scencery on the coast - this is in Caramel on our way to Big Sur.

This is also in Caramel.

Jared and the kids playing in a tide pool. They found crabs, seastars, and other treasures.

Climbing down to the tide pools - this picture does not accurately show how steep it was - I stayed at the top with the baby because it was so steep.

On our whale watching tour that was a disaster. This is the last 1/2 hour when it was finally calm and you could sit outside. Funny story - when we got on the boat Myles wanted to know about putting on lifejackets (the lady bought the tickets from said all kids had to be in lifejackets - but then when we got on the boat they didn't say anything about putting them on) - he wanted to wear one in case we sunk like the Titanic. Jared told him not to worry about it and- "all those swimming lessons I have been paying for will finally pay off" HAHAA - I laughed so hard.

Krill we caught on the whale watching tour. We found lots of krill but no whales eating the krill.

This is where we spent the first 2.5 hours of the whale watching tour. The ocean was extremely rough and you couldn't sit outside without getting drenched from the waves - and it was windy and cold and wet and people were getting seasick and throwing up. Danica felt a little sick and so did Lynnaea - but she fell asleep and so did Kiersten and Anders. All that and NO WHALES!!!

Standing at the top of the steepest hill in SanFran. It may be the steepest but there were ALOT of steep hills. It looked like the cars parked on the hill could roll right down like dominoes!

The curviest road in SanFran. It was crazy to drive down.

Turtle bread loaf at Boudin's in SanFran.

Jared's favorite place in SanFran - the boudin bakery. We got lots of yummy bread and cookies and brownies.

China Town where we were the tourist attraction with our six kids. Seriously - MULTIPLE Asian woman asked me if these were all my kids and kept counting them.

China Town.

Part way across the Golden Gate Bridge. Myles looks so happy because he was worried about there being an earthquake while we were on the bridge.

View walking along the bridge.

On the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see Alcatraz in the background.

Monterey Bay Family Vacation

You need to read this blog from the bottom up as these pics are in reverse order. Sorry! This picture Jared took for me as I was holding Devaney - I wanted a picture of the kids under the Bubba Gump Shrimp sign on Cannery Row in Monterey but he cut off the sign and just got the kids. All well. Monterey, California is where the condo time share was and where we spent the majority of our time. It was awesome!! As Jared said "one of the best family vacations we have been on". Very laid back for the most part - the kids swam in the heated pool in the condo at the end of each day, played at the beach, drove around seeing the beautiful coast scencery and we just had a good time.



Cool jellyfish at the aquarium. We actually saw a lot of jellyfish floating in the ocean when we were walking along the wharf.

Kiersten looking so BIG and cute at the aquarium.

Danica also looking so grownup and cute at the aquarium.

Myles getting even smarter because
he reads all the exhibits. Funny story about his BYU shirt -when we were in SF parking to go to Fisherman's Wharf some people drove by and started honking and yelling "go BYU"- they were BYU grads and all excited to see fellow BYU fans. (although it is hard to be a fan this year).

Lynnaea playing at the aquarium learning center.

This is the Splash ZOne - the kids were able to touch starfish, crabs, seacucumbers, manta rays, and sea kelp. It was a really awesome aquarium. We had a small mishap - the splash zone has a revolving door entrance and Jared had gone ahead with some of the other kids so it was just Kiersten, Anders and I. Anders walked to the revolving door and stuck his hand out like he was going to try to stop the door and YES I WAS THERE to pull him back but the little old lady volunteer and this other older couple walking by all gasped and were all upset and watched me very closely as I then maneuvered ANders, Kiersten, myself with Devaney in the baby carrier through the revolving door without mishap. (I am sure they thought he was going to be crushed).

Sunset from our condo.

Jared and kids playing at the beach by our condo.

What a good looking guy! This is on the 17 mile drive - it goes by Pebble Beach Golf Course (some fancy course they have big tournaments at) and by rich peoples mansions. (I didn't think to take any pictures of the mansions) You have to PAY to drive this area of the coast and see the fancy houses (the rich get richer as we pay to see their houses!) The beach area was cool and we saw black tail deer (two bucks and a does) on one of the golf courses along the drive. Jared thought that was cool.

California Sea lions.

On the dock at Cannery ROw.

Checking out the sea lions.

We took a detour on the way to Monterey to go to Big Tree State Park. A friend told us about it - it is redwood groves. He said just as good as "the Redwoods" - I don't know I haven't been to "the Redwoods" but these trees were beautiful and HUGE!

Danica by redwood tree.

Driving through the Sierra Nevada mountains on our detour to see the redwoods. The road was a little side road and it was crazy steep, curvy and narrow. Very much like the road we went on in Oregan that said "you could die driving this road". Lynnaea and I were both feeling carsick because the mountains never seemed to end. It was pretty spectacular scencery though.

We left Saturday the 18th at 6pm because we waited for Danica and Myles to finish their soccer and football games.

Various Pictures

Anders holding Devaney. I am not sure she is grateful to have so many older siblings who love her dearly and want to hold her and kiss her and love her to peices. But rest assured, she will be the most spoiled child in the universe with all those older siblings who love to hold her, kiss, her and love her to peices.

These did not come out in order - so random order will have to do. This is Lynnaea on the first day of school - she is in grade 2 this year!! Someone please tell me how to SLOW down time!!! She loves school and was named student of the week last week!!

This is Myles first day of school picture. He is in grade 5 this year - and acing everything as usual. He is also liking football a little bit more so that is good (he hated it for awhile). He is a good kid.

Here is Danica on the first day of grade 6 which is in the middle school - so she goes to school earlier than the other kids and has a locker (we had to practice opening it before school started) and she looks so grown up!! Sniff Sniff. She scored two goals in her comp soccer game on Wednesday. She is doing really good and loves soccer.

This is Devaney in her blessing dress on her blessing day. She is so sweet!

MOre of Devaney on her blessing day.

ANders on the first day of preschool. Look how big he is!! He loves school and his teacher thinks he is so cute.

Here is Kiersten on the first day of Kindergarten. She is so beautiful and so kind. She really does not like for other people to be sad and will go out of her way to make her siblings happy. ONe day, Lynnaea was in trouble for being mean to Kiersten and so she was sent to her room and Kiersten was so upset about Lynnaea being sent to her room that she told me it was okay and could she go get Lynnaea so she wouldn't be sad.

Here is Jack and Devaney all dressed up!!

Jack, Devaney and Sebastian - cute cousins!

Grandpa, Grandma Rasmussen and Devaney on her blessing day.

Jared, his mom and Devaney on her blessing day.