Our Trip to Northern California, Part 1

Some highlights and pictures:

Thursday

• Abby went on her first plane ride
• Marinda's aunt and uncle happened to be on the same plane as us, one row behind us (but on a connecting a flight to Hawaii--poor guys)
• Marinda really liked the pendulum at the Exploratorium in SF
• Abby loved the lights and coin roller thing at the E... in SF
• She also likes to pass electric current through herself to light the light bulb
• But she really loved the ball floating in the air above the construction cone
• Mike had fun with all the science toys
• He also liked the pictures from New Guinea and the real live chicken embryos
• We drove the PCH down to Watsonville and ate Chinese food

Friday

• Santa Cruz was really, really warm
• Abby doesn't like to walk on the sand in bare feet until she's been distracted enough by the waves to forget that she doesn't like it
• Abby does love running into the waves
• Marinda saw the gravestone of her 4th great-grandfather in the most charming old cemetery
  
• The Santa Cruz Public Library has tons of genealogy stuff
  

Saturday

• We paid to drive 17 miles through really pretty beaches and golf courses
• Abby still loves running into waves
• Monterey is also warm or we just picked the best weather weekend of the year to come :)
• The Monterey Bay Aquarium has really cute otters and penguins
• There must be a million fish as well
• The aquarium was fabulous
• Abby especially loved the kids play areas
• Then we ate fish for dinner :)

So, I was going to post a slide show but that'll have to wait for a faster internet connection...