Fantastic Vacation...prepare for a lot of reading

Although we've been back for a little over a week, I'm just now writing about our wonderful vacation. As I mentioned before, Robert and I headed out to California for about 8 days. We had an amazing time!! Saw a ton while we were there! In fact, we drove over 1500 miles just within California! Crazy!!
Our first day there, we headed toward the Sequoia National Forest. On our way there, we made a little pit stop in Bakersfield and saw a friend from college. It was great to be able to catch up with him and hear what he's been up to the last couple of years! He's a fantastic guy and is serving the Lord in every way he can. After our lunch, we finished our drive to our cabin just outside the Sequoia National Forest. It was so cute!! By the time we made it there, though, it was about 4:30 so we didn't have too much time to do much sightseeing our first day. However, we wanted to do some. So we headed back down the mountain towards the forest. Just a little way from our cabin we saw a bear!!! It was awesome! This was the first time I had seen a bear in real life, so I was quite excited. We have pictures, but I'm not at home right now so I'll have to post them later. After our little encounter, we made our way into the forest. The trees were absolutely breathtaking! But our pictures don't do the trees justice. We decided to do a little hike into the forest, about a mile in, and when we made it to our destination we saw a baby bear!! I was very nervous seeing this one because Robert had just finished telling me that the only time to be nervous when seeing a bear is when there are babies because the mommas will do whatever it takes to protect them. Eek! Needless-to-say, we didn't take any pictures because I was freaking out and dragging Robert down the trail. And then, when we were almost to the trail head, we saw ANOTHER bear! Three bears in one day! This bear did have a tracking collar on, though. Our first day was quite eventful!
The next day, we woke up very early and headed out towards Yosemite. There were a few more milestones in the forest we stopped and checked out, but we were really excited to make it to Yosemite. It took longer to get there than we had anticipated and it was about 5:00 when we made it to our bed and breakfast. This time, we decided to just relax, get a good nights sleep, and get up early the next day and check out Yosemite. (Side note, the b&b was fantastic! I will definitely stay at one again.) The next day when we headed into Yosemite, we were blown away! Seriously one of the most beautiful places on earth!! We saw some major tourist spots, like Glacier Point and Half Dome, and then decided to do a hike up to some waterfalls. Although the hike was very much worth the effort, it was one of the most difficult things I've done. It was straight up and quite difficult terrain. We stopped A LOT! Poor Robert. But he was very patient with me!! I told him it was the baby's fault because I was already lacking energy. :) Like I said, though, it was very much worth the effort! We did, though, crash that night!
Then we headed to the coast. We went to Monterey and checked out the aquarium. It was very nice. The only problem was that there were so many people! It was very difficult to see the exhibits. The next day, we went on a whale watching tour. It was wonderful!! But it was SO cold!! We did see 2 whales! A momma and baby humpback. The was very, very big!! Our camera died on the boat, though, so we didn't get too many pictures. After that, we hit the road and drove down the coast towards Santa Barbara. Without a doubt, that was some of the most beautiful coast I have even seen. God's handy work at it's best! Unfortunately, because our camera died, we don't have any pictures of the coast. :( It was a looong drive, but we finally made it to Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara was so cute! That night I had the best fetticini alfredo I have ever had! We walked around the town a little and then went back to our hotel. I was so excited to spend the next day on the beach.
While we enjoyed our time on the beach, it wasn't quite what I was expecting. The beaches were covered in kelp, which was covered in flies. So that was a little disappointing. But we were able to find some beach with not too much kelp and spent the day. For lunch, we had the infamous In and Out burger. It was good!
After our day in Santa Barbara, we were going to meet up with Brian and Shannon Moore and little Sadie. We were meeting them for dinner so we decided to head towards LA and check out some of the beaches around there. We found some great ones!!! So we spent about an hour on the beach. Robert did some body surfing while I read my book. That's my perfect day right there! There were a lot of surfers out and it was so fun to watch them do there thing!
So we met up with Brian and Shannon and met Sadie...what a cutie! We went to dinner and then headed to their church for the championship volleyball games. We had a good time watching them play and meeting some of the people in their church. They've got some great people there!! It was so nice to be able to meet up with Brian and Shannon! And Robert definately enjoyed playing some basketball with Brian.
Overall, we had such a great trip. By the time we made it home, though, we were very tired! We enjoyed California so much that we would really like to live there someday. It's a great compromise for us. I love the beach, Robert loves the mountains. Perfect!! I'll wrap this up for now. And I'll post a few pictures of the highlights when I get home. Thanks for bearing with me through this ridiculously long post!