On our last full day visiting California, Dan’s parents took us to the San Francisco Zoo because we all know of Mio’s love for animals! It was the first time visiting the SF Zoo for both Mio and myself, and Dan hadn’t been since he was a child, so it was a fun experience for everyone!
The San Francisco Zoo was definitely a nice zoo, with lots of animals to see! I can’t wait until the weather gets warmer so that we can take Mio to see the National Zoo in Washington, DC as well. 🙂
I’m so glad that we could have a chance to meet up with Mio’s California gal pal Sofia and her mommy Sonya while we were visiting the Bay Area. We spent many fun afternoons with S+S at the park, library, and at each other’s houses having playdates while we were living in El Cerrito, and Sofia became Mio’s best friend in the neighborhood, and we mamas developed a wonderful friendship too as we shared about the joys (and challenges!) of our little ones. Sonya is definitely one of my closest mama friends, and I couldn’t imagine visiting the area without seeing her and Sof!
We got to spend a half day together just catching up, snacking together, playing in Sofia’s room, and going on a walk around the neighborhood. Thank you Sonya for opening up your home to us for the playdate, and for the beautiful and heartfelt early birthday gift for Mio!
A video of us opening the gift: (Thanks for sharing the video, Sonya!)
On one of our days while we were staying in San Jose with Dan’s parents, we took a drive down to San Juan Bautista and Monterey. I’ve been to Monterey before, but it was nice to visit again as well as to visit the Spanish mission at San Juan Bautista for the first time. There’s so much history behind the mission that it was really fascinating to tour the grounds, and it was extra interesting to me because it was where they filmed some of the most memorable scenes in my favorite Hitchcock films Vertigo!
After spending about an hour at the mission, we continued down south until we arrived at Monterey, where we walked down Cannery Row and checked out the ocean from there.
After exploring Cannery Row, we moved onto walk around Lovers Point Park!
It was a very laid back, memorable day trip where we got to see a lot of sights, both new and familiar! 🙂 California has so many beautiful sights to see, and it was so nice to have some time to go visit some of them during our visit!
After our weekend in LA, we flew up to San Jose to stay with Dan’s parents for the rest of the week! It was a short five days that flew by, but it was so nice for Mio to see her grandparents again and spend some quality time with them. When she got off of the plane at SFO, she was really cranky and crying, but as soon as she saw her grandparents who came to pick us up, her face broke into a huge smile and she reached her arms out to them! She remembers them from all the times we spent together while we lived in California, as well as all the video chats they’ve been doing via Google Hangout since we’ve moved out here.
Here are some snapshots from when we had a family outing and lunch at Edenvale Garden Park in San Jose…
Continuing from Day 1 in Los Angeles, we stayed in and relaxed for most of the day on Day 2. March 3 also happened to be Hinamatsuri, or Girls’ Day in Japan, and Megumi went all out to celebrate this special day!
For lunch, Megumi was preparing a Hinamatsuri feast and invited a bunch of her Japanese American girlfriends, as Hinamatsuri is a celebration of girls everywhere! We were all floored by how much food she prepared, all according to the traditional dishes that are served for Hinamatsuri. Of course, she put a few of us to work to help with the food prep. 😉 I love helping Megumi cook/bake — it’s part of the fun, I learn new tips and techniques, and all the effort is rewarded with good eats!
Our time in Southern California was short but so sweet! The LA portion of our trip was over, but we still had lots of fun times ahead of us up in Northern California. Stay tuned!