California

We boarded the plane on Saturday, Sept 18 and made our way to California for a week! Bryce's cousin was getting married and we were invited to the wedding. It had been quite a few years since we had been out to CA, so the wedding was a good excuse for us to visit CA again - and we decided to make a week of it with Grandpa & Gramma Hutchins and Aunt Ruth Ann, too. This was the first time anybody from Bryce's CA family would meet Connor, so that was another reason why we decided to make the trip out there. It was a fun week filled with family time (both immediate & extended family), fun sight-seeing, and a wedding. The weather was in the 60s & 70s when we were in San Francisco and Benicia, and a hot 95 degree day when we were in Chico for the wedding. Not bad at all!

We did a variety of things while we were in CA and stayed in a variety of places, as well. In total, we stayed in 4 different hotels during the week and visited 3 main cities.

We arrived in CA in the evening on Saturday, so all we did on Saturday was find out hotel, order pizza, and went to bed. Sunday we drove to Benicia to attend a family picnic. It was great to see some of the extended family - and for them to meet Connor for the first time. We had a picnic at a local park and just hung out for the afternoon. Connor's favorite part of the day was hanging out with his doggie-friend and walking her around on the leash!





The next couple of days were spent in San Francisco. We hung out at Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. Connor got to take his first Carousel ride at Pier 39 and also thought the sea lions were pretty cool, too.

Family pic in front of Alcatraz...

Bruce & Bryce went to the 49ers Monday Night Football game. They both thought the stadium was awesome, and saw a good game even though the 49ers lost...

We ate at In N Out Burger twice while we were in CA. Bryce & I had it for the first time when we were out in NV, so we took advantage again while we had the chance.

Connor's favorite thing of the whole trip was visiting the ocean! He looooved the sand. He played and played and played in it.

On Thursday we drove to Benicia and stayed 1 night in the hotel there. We walked down by the water and along 1st Street during the afternoon. That evening we had dinner at Mike & Gayle's restaurant (Gayle is Jo's niece). Gayle was working and so was her daughter and they both spent some time visiting with us at our table, so it was good to see them and catch up with them for a little bit.

On Friday we took a mini-road trip up to Chico, where the wedding was taking place. We had dinner on Friday night with Aunt Beth & Uncle Fred, and then the wedding was on Saturday. (As I was downloading these pictures onto the computer, I realized that we have zero pictures from the wedding day. All the pics are on Jo and Ruth Ann's cameras. Oops.) It was an outdoor wedding at a ranch in Chico. The weather was hot, but the scenery was beautiful. We got to visit with the extended family a lot while we were at the wedding/reception so it was a great way to spend our last night in CA.

A big Thank You to Bruce, Jo & Ruth Ann for letting us tag-along on this vacation. We enjoyed our time with you.