California Dreamin'

We had a really wonderful trip to California. I would say it was even worth the very, very long drive to get to spend some time with the Buskirks. We left on Wednesday at noon and drove until bedtime. We stayed in a hotel and drove over the mountains to San Jose the next morning. We decided not to pack a bunch of activities into our time so we could avoid any more long drives and also just spend our time with the people we came to see. I kind of forgot to take any pictures until the night before we left, so you don't get to see the fun that Sarah had having grandma help her with her homework and teach her some tricks to help with school things. You will just have to imagine all of the fun we had "swimming" in the hot tub -- the pool was way too cold and would take forever to heat up, so we just warmed up the spa to a kid (and pregnant lady)-friendly temperature and had a blast. I should add that ever since we came home Kate has insisted on wearing a swimsuit -- hoping I guess that somehow a little spa will materialize in our yard.

The highlight (and main impetus) of the trip was our trip to the San Fransisco Opera to see Mozart's Magic Flute with Grandpa , Kevin & Kristina (Grandma graciously offered to hang out with the kids). We drove up to the city and had a fabulous dinner of Thai food before heading over to the beautiful Opera House. The production was wonderful, the singers incredible, the evening sublime.



We were so glad to have the chance to spend some time with Kev & Kristina -- including seeing their awesome bathroom renovations and having lunch at Google --what a place! Bry & Candice were in NYC for most of the weekend but it was really great to see them and console each other at the Red Sox loss in the game we watched (HDTV is so awesome) together after dinner on Monday.

We did the drive home in one day which was very long. We will try in the future to break it up over two. We're home now and trying to get caught up on life here. The girls did a lot of homework while we were there, but Sarah got a new teacher while we were gone and her lesson plans were not exactly what the substitute sent with us. It is just opera month for us. Last night (thanks to Bethy for babysitting) we headed up to Salt Lake to see Wagner's Flying Dutchman and we're taking Sarah next week to see Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at BYU. Fun stuff!