Julia's Occupations: Crusin' California

After all the Christmas festivities were over my family packed up and made the >1000 mile drive from Oregon down to Southern California. I must say that flying is the way to go, even though I don't particularly enjoy it either. But it wasn't too bad thanks to Grandma Scoville and the DVD player she got us for Christmas. The kids were plugged in in the back seat most of the drive down. We do have one of those monster vans that holds 15 (well 11 because the back seat was taken out so we could fit our luggage back there) but it was still close quarters. Susan and I ended up sitting in the front row, then Steven, David and Laura were in the middle row and Thomas got the whole back row to himself for most of the trip. We left on Saturday the 27th and drove down through the snowy mountains of Oregon. We were blessed though because we didn't even have to put chains on and we made it safely through the mountains. We drove down to Walt and Jodi's house in El Dorado Hills that day. It was fun to see them. I hadn't been to their house for many years. We had a great dinner and then headed down to Glen's house in Livermore. He wasn't there because he was still gone for the holidays. But we stayed at his house. I also hadn't been there in years and his house looks quite different than the last time I was there. We had a funny visit about 10:30 that night. Some of the Priests in Glen's ward heard that he had neices that were staying at his house that weekend and decided they wanted to meet them. So they came over with cookies and ice cream. Too bad we were all getting ready for bed by the time they got there. They missed meeting Susan. But we went to his ward on Sunday and Mom recognized one of them that came to visit the night before. It was quite amusing.

After church we drove to pick up Carolyn and Nate in San Jose and then proceeded down Highway 101 to San Simeon. It was a beautiful drive (much better than I-5). Dad did a good job driving, but it got kind of windey after a while and we all started to feel sick. We did stop a couple of times to get out and just see the beauty. We stopped off on the 17-mile drive through Pebble Beach and other great golf courses. It was great and the houses were amazing. We made it down to San Simeon that night and ate dinner and just played games.

Santa Barbara Coast

Carolyn and I at Santa Barbara

Monday morning we went through a tour of Hearst Castle. It was amazing. There was a beautiful view of the ocean and the house was astounding. The guest house was better than any house I'll ever live in. We also watched a movie on the building of Hearst Castle. It was amazing to see the vision that Hearst had and that he was able to see it into action. It made me contemplate what my vision for my life is and how I can accomplish that. Good thoughts for a new year.