Christmas Vaction to California - Santa Cruz Island

For Christmas, my parents gave all of their posterity a fun trip to California. After a long drive to Solvang (like an hour northish of Santa Barbara), we slept well and set out early in morning to Ventura, where we would embark on an island adventure to Channel Islands National Park.


The sun was coming up over the Santa Barbara Channel while we were driving and it was so pretty!

Everyone on the boat from the back to the front: Matt, me, Dad, Andrew, Daniel, and Leslie.


Two sea lions chilling on a buoy thing.

An oil rig that is inspiring my future children's book, Counting to 10 with the Oil Production Process.

Dolphins!

I think this is California from the island.


Andrew and I on the dock at Santa Cruz Island.

The grass was really green because there had been a ton of rain in California the week before we got there. Think of us all trekking through black muddy roads.

Binoculars!

Animal tracks! We think they are fox tracks and crow tracks.


Potato Harbor. It was very pretty.

Family picture! Andrew was playing with the lighting and forgot to switch it to normal.Me, Leslie, Dad, Melanie, Ross-i-patootie, Mom, Andrew, Matt, and Daniel.

A cool fence--I just like this picture. Andrew took it.

Some lookout point or something. I don't remember its name.




The family hiking. Ross is leading the way, and is followed by Melanie, Daniel, Dad, me, Leslie, Mom, and Matt.

This is another angle of the lookout harbor thing.

Matt and I playing in the cold water.

Sunset on the boat. Lovely and patriotic (please note the flag in the bottom corner).

It was a great time! No one got sea sick. We all expected Matt to get sick, as he has a history of motion sickness and throwing up on his sisters and their blankets. I got a little sunburned (ya!) and we all enjoyed scraping mud off of our shoes for the rest of the trip. Hopefully I will have time to post more pictures.