The rest of the Trip:
Saturday, May 5:  On Saturday, still at John’s Aunt Sue’s and Uncle Mark’s houise in San Luis Obispo, John helped his uncle lay prepare his floor for wood to be layed down.
Sunday, May 6:   Elise and I went to church with Aunt Sue and the girls, while John and Uncle Mark stayed home and worked on laying the wooden floors.  They worked all day on this and the results looked great.

Monday, May 7:  We headed South again, through LA, and kept going to Dana Point.  Dana Point is very beautiful and right on the ocean.  We got there mid-afternoon and John got right into some painting with his Uncle Hyatt.  Uncle Hyatt and Aunt Anne are both artists.  That night we took Elise to a park, which she enjoyed immensely.

Tuesday, May 8: In the morning, while John and his uncle discussed computers, Aunt Anne took Elise and I down to “baby beach,” which is a shallow beach protected by the breakwater.  This means there were no waves to worry Elise, and though she was still hesitant to get into the water, she soon was splashing around and getting wet up to her neck.  It was a warm day (around 80 degrees), so I enjoyed sitting in the sun and wading with Elise.  We got back for lunch, and Elise and I had naps.  In the evening we took a picnic to the harbor.  That evening, John and I got a quick lesson in printmaking and monotypes from Aunt Anne.  We both got to try our hand at it, which was a lot of fun.
Wednesday, May 9:  In the morning John and I took Elise to the mission at San Juan Capistrano.  It was beautiful!  Then we headed towards Laguna and stopped at a beach that had some beautiful rocks covered in green growth.  They were continually splashed by the waves, and it was very beautiful.  This beach was a little harder to wade in as the waves broke right next to shore.  For lunch we headed back to the harbor at Dana Point and had a wonderful mexican meal.  Then came naptimes for Elise and I, which John used to do some more painting.

      

Thursday, May 10: We got up bright and early and headed even further South to San Diego.  On the way we “enjoyed” a long wait in very slowly moving traffic.  Our destination was the San Diego Zoo.  Despite the traffic, we arrived shortly after opening, and began our enjoyment of the numerous animal species.  Elise always asks to see the giraffes at any zoo, so we made sure to get to them.  One of our favorite sightings was a mother gorilla carrying her baby on her back.  Elise got to imitate this behaviour on the gorilla statues outside the enclosure.  When asked what my favorite part of the zoo was, I am tempted to say the moving sidewalk that carried us back up the large hill.  🙂  Though it was not as hard on me as Disneyland, the long day of walking did wear me out.  We spent the night in Encinitas with “Linda next door.”  (She used to be the next-door neighbor of John’s mom in California.)  That night we went out to eat at a mexican resteraunt across from a rocky beach.

   

Friday, May 11:  We arrived back at Uncle Hyatt and Aunt Anne’s house mid-morning.   John helped his uncle to set up the new computer he had bought earlier in the week.  Elise and I spent part of the afternoon in the hot tub in the backyard.

Saturday, May 12:  Aunt Anne took Elise and I for a drive along the beach and shopping.  We bought some “new” books for Elise at a thrift store.  We got back for lunch, and then John and I took Elise back the “baby beach.”  It was cooler that day (in the 70’s) so Elise wasn’t sure about getting wet.  John rented a kayak for an hour and Elise and I busied ourselves with burying each other’s feet in the sand and then building a giant sand castle.  When John got back, Elise was ready to get into the water, so he waded around with her for awhile and I sat in the sun and talked to all the kids that were attracted to our sand castle like a magnet.  We went out for ice cream after the beach and then headed back.  I spent some of the afternoon starting to pack up stuff, and John did some more computer work for his uncle.

Sunday, May 13:  We left bright and early Sunday morning.  We were a little bit hurried because I had thought our flight left at 10:00 and realized after we got up in the morning that it left at 9:00!  But we made good time and dropped our car off at the rental car place and rode the shuttle to the airport.  Security moved pretty quickly, and we made it in plenty of time to our gate.  We used the time to get some breakfast and eat on the floor like a picnic, since there were not many seats available.  Many people were headed to Hawaii that morning.  Our flight was good, though we experienced some turbulence coming into Denver.  I was sick by the time we landed, but thankfully we had almost three hours before our next flight so I had time to let my stomach settle.  We ate lunch and let Elise play and ride the moving sidewalks some.  We were all pretty exhausted by the time we boarded our smaller flight to Tulsa.  Elise was adamant she was going to stay up, but thankfully I awoke from an uncomfortable nap half an hour after take-off to find her sound asleep.  She slept most of the flight home.  We rode the shuttle to the hotel, got our car, and drove home, arriving around 8:00 pm.  Though it isn’t usually seen as a positive to lose two hours, in one way it was good to have a shorter day since we were so tired.