My boys got to experience Hearst Castle for the first time, when we took them on the Grand Rooms tour.
There was a good movie we watched about Hearst before catching the bus up the mountain for our tour. The views from on top of the mountain were amazing. The boys liked the outside grounds and pools more than the inside of the main house.
The world was all laid out before us when we made it to the top of Murray Hill, where we could see all of San Luis Obispo, Edna Valley, and even the Pismo dunes.
The entire 5.3 mile Reservoir Canyon Loop took us about 5 hours to complete, but the view along the ridge was totally worth it.
Luck wasn’t on our side today. We spent the afternoon fishing off of the Cayucos Pier, but the fish weren’t biting. In the evening, we watched the Cal Poly baseball home opener, which they unfortunately lost to Pepperdine.
We spent our first day on the Central Coast at Pismo’s Monarch Grove, before heading to San Luis Obispo to walk around downtown. There weren’t many butterflies left; most had moved on. The best time to see the monarchs is in November and December. Still, it was a beautiful day.
I also caught a great picture of a Great Blue Heron looking for lunch.
The kids had a blast playing in the snow and sledding at the White River Sno-Park near Mt Hood. I even gave sledding a try, and managed not to hurt myself.
My Dad and Connor got to spend as much time at they wanted reading about every rock in the museum. I’m not sure which of them enjoyed the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks & Minerals more.
We walked around downtown Portland, seeing the giant Christmas tree by the old courthouse, and the Portlandia statue. In the evening, we saw the impressive holiday light displays at the Portland Zoo.
All the PNW Ladds gathered at my sister Courtney’s house to eat dinner, open presents, and watch the Seahawks lose. The camera loves my little niece Braelyn!
The boys got a lot of books this year, as well as a few games and Legos.
Santa was a little more fun. Connor got a cool R2D2 robot to construct, build the circuits to bring it to life, and then program using his tablet! Gavin got a radar gun so he can monitor his progress to being a fast enough pitcher to draft.
After our morning presents, we headed down south to the traditional Loera Family gathering, for dinner and more presents.
I managed to snap some photos of Connor while I was running the “stack the hex nuts” station. The kids had a sugar filled chaotic blast.
We spent the day before Aliciana’s birthday at Disneyland, so she could celebrate it like a princess. Everything was decorated for the holidays and the castle looked beautiful with all the lights.
The boys got to paddle the canoes for the first time, and I got soaked when I went on Splash Mountain with Gavin. The new Star Wars land has an amazing atmosphere to walk around in; it really felt like you were on a remote outpost on some alien world.
The Safari Park is the new home of 2 platypuses, the only 2 outside of Australia. The zoo had been working on getting them for over 100 years, as it was a dream of the founder to have some.
Unfortunately, it was quite dark in their exhibit (they are nocturnal), and I had a huge line of people behind me, so I didn’t get any good photos of them. The exhibit had only been open one day, so hopefully next time I go I will have more time to try to get a better shot.
Making new friends at the Zoo, such as the spurred tortoises, Mickey the umbrella cockatoo, anteater, gerenuk, and reindeer.
