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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Day Four - Sonoma & Muir Woods

Good morning Marley, Paige & Christine!

This morning I took a bunch of pictures of our hotel so you could see what it looked like. And yes Paige, we DID like our hotel, thanks for asking. The one we are in right now is close to San Francisco Airport and is not very nice. I don't think I'll bother taking any pictures of it!

Here are some of our hotel in Napa.
This is our hotel - The Elm House Inn. Pretty, isn't it?

See that top window? That was our room!

This is taken from the second floor balcony, looking down at the breakfast set up.

And here's Daddy loading up with fruit salad and a freshly baked mini loaf. Today is was poppy seed. Yesterday it was blueberry crumble. Sooooo yummy!!! They also make Belgian waffles and I had a yoghurt with my fruit today. If we ever come back to Napa we'll be staying here again. The breakfasts, the freshly baked cookies in the evening ... so yummy!

Anyway, moving on. Here is a view (also taken from the upstairs balcony) of the sitting area and fireplace.

Out back is a little garden and beyond that fence on the left is a hot tub. We didn't use it though.

Just off the breakfast area is this outdoor patio area. I can imagine this is a popular breakfast spot in the summertime!

After we packed and checked out we went shopping at an outlet mall across the highway from the hotel. Marley, I got you a few things for summer. Paige, Daddy picked out a new swim suit for you. And all of you girls have a new summer dress that you can hopefully wear to Aunty Jonina's brother Josh's wedding in a couple weeks. Hope you like everything and I hope it all fits!

Then it was off to Sonoma.
I liked this town immediately. It has character - something I found a bit lacking in Napa. As charming as Napa is! We had lunch first at a Mexican restaurant.

I had a strawberry margherita and decided to get a little silly for you guys!

This picture is for Grandpa. I got the fish tacos.
The one on the left was my favourite (I didn't like the pinky cream stuff on top of the other one.)

Daddy ordered Carnitas (basically pulled pork tacos.) Pretty yummy too.

After lunch we went across the street to the old Spanish Mission. It was pretty interesting but I won't bore you with a history lesson right now.
I will however ask you a question: What type of tree do you think this is?

It's an orange tree!
This was in the courtyard of the mission.

Also in the courtyard was this GIANT prickly pear cactus. Ouch! Watch out Daddy!!

In the front was this other massive cactus. I have no idea what type it is but it looks seriously scary!!

See what I mean? Look at all those prickles and thorns!

After a quick walk around the Sonoma town square, we drove to Muir Woods - a State Park full of really tall, really old redwood trees.

Here's is a picture of Daddy in front of one of the trees. It probably doesn't look that tall, right?
How about now?


We are now at San Francisco International airport waiting for our flight to LA where we will board the cruise ship. There is free WiFi here so I am able to finish off this post. If you checked in before heading off to school this was a far as I got. So ... to resume ...

This is a slice of a very old redwood. Can you see the tags? These tags are pointing to rings which indicate years of growth and therefore years of age of the tree. The innermost one says the tree was born in 909AD and then the outermost tag says it died (fell down) in 1930. So this tree was over a 1000 years old!!!!
It may not look very big here but check out this next picture ...

Now do you think it was a big tree? It was about as thick around as Marley is tall!

More pictures of trees.

Me in front of another big tree!

Daddy is just entering an area they call Cathedral Grove.

Remember Where's Waldo? Now Where's Daddy?!
The trees really are unbelievably tall!

I took this picture of what is basically  root-like growth on one of the trees because I thought it kind of looked like a bear. What do you think?

After leaving Muir Woods we headed to San Francisco. This time we got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. This was our first glimpse of it.

And here we are approaching the bridge deck. Very exciting!

Okay girls, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed all the pictures today!
Have a good day at school and preschool and hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.
Love you all!! Mom.

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