Stop 2: California

Our second stop was to the bay area of California to see two wonderful groups of people: Noa's parents, who relocated there this year, and Herman, Traci, and their daughter, Emilia.  This was our first time meeting Emilia, as she joined their family in December of last year, and we were just smitten with her.  One night after dinner, she enjoyed dancing in the street to a local band at a street festival near the restaurant.  Traci took some cute shots of her that night.

Isn't she just ADORABLE?!

I got to spend lots of time with Traci, which is great since living overseas has kept it difficult for me to stay in touch with her.  I've known her for about 10 years now!

Traci, Emilia, and I got to go to the Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco.  We dubbed this fair as having the best of the best of Etsy and most of the goods were amazing (there were a few strange tables that we chose to ignore).  I came away with a few goodies including this print...I'm sure you are shocked.  You know I can't resist a good "animal-themed" print.

Noa and Herman got to reunite with a friend who works for Google, so we got to visit the Google campus.  We had a lot of fun exploring this campus that reminded me of my college days, with all the buildings, bikes all over, and a huge cafeteria with various food stations. 

Team Juloa enjoyed trying the community bikes that are available for everyone to use.

We also spent some time with Noa's parents, Jack and Carol.  Since we've never had a Booher-Hammer-only hang out time, we took advantage of the opportunity and took off for a little get-away.  Noa's parents planned the whole thing and it started out with a visit to a local farmers market, which I loved!  The colors!  The variety!  The fragrant smells!  I just can't wait to start going to the farmer's markets in Washington! We picked up few items, drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, with the top down on the convertible of course, to a state park for an afternoon picnic.

Then they surprised us with a 2 1/2 hour trail ride!  It's been a few years since I've been on a horse and I've definitely never been on a horse that long before (I think we were all feeling it the next day).  But, I loved it!  My horse was named Melody and Noa rode Snickers.  The trail ride took us throughout forests, hills, waterways, and the beach.  We had several river crossings, like this one.

Check out the size of this tree!

Noa with Snickers, the tailgater (he really liked Melody in front of him).

Riding the horses on the beach was the best!

At the end of the day, we relaxed at a lovely sea-side hotel.  The next day led us to Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.  Both Noa and I did not know much about the history of Hearst Castle, but the tour was extremely informative, as was the visitor's center (click on the link for more info).  

The castle was breathtaking.  My favorite part was probably the outdoor pool, with the bright blue bottom.

The castle itself is like a museum with artifacts from all over the world both inside the castle and on the castle grounds.  Here you can see one of the oldest pieces on the property, from Egypt, with one of the castle buildings in the background.

I'm so glad we were able to spend this time with Noa's parents....it was a wonderful trip!