Last week we visited historic Old Town. Old Town is considered the birth place of San Diego. It is the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in California and where the first Europeans settled. This tourist attraction contains both original and reconstructed buildings representing that time, the 1800's, where California began. Among the historic museums where you can learn all about the origins of San Diego you can also find galleries and shops filled with crafts, jewelry, clothing, and more relating to the time period as well as modern souvenir's. There is also live entertainment, mariachi's (Mexican musicians playing folk music of their country), and a bunch of restaurants. It is also the site of the famous Whaley House known to be America's most haunted house. Spoooky. Growing up in San Diego I have visited Old Town numerous times, on school field trips and just because. It is a fun place to see and if you ever make it San Diego you must go. Here are just a few pics of our day in Old Town, these are just a tiny fraction of the things you will see on your visit. I wish I would have taken more...

Lady making fresh flour tortillas at one of the many restaurants.

My delicious lunch, Puerto Nuevo style lobster.

Old Wells Fargo office

Old General Store

The Women of Old Town

Donkeys, Beware the dark brown on the left bites!

Monday we made our way to Disneyland and had a fabulous time. We rode some rides watched some shows and the best part was seeing Penelope's face light up when she met all her favorite characters. Especially the princesses! This little girl was in heaven, she said it was the best day of her life. :)

Princess Aurora

Her favorite!

Princess Cinderella

Princess Snow White.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Penelope has been having a blast playing outside in the sunny weather. She can't believe all the bugs! She has been digging through the dirt searching for little critters non stop. It's a totally different world here...She met her first roly poly bug and made a home for it in a plastic container that she poked holes in to allow it to breath, and filled with grass to eat. I used to love doing this as a kid! She also dug up her first worms!

Saturday we visited the county fair. I thought the Alaska state fair had a lot of people, this was ridiculous. It took us almost an hour just to get into our parking space and towards the afternoon we were bumping shoulders with strangers just trying to walk. We had fun though, checking out the exhibits, playing games, and riding rides. Unfortunatly it was too hot and crowded to enjoy all of the outrageous fair food, like deep fried kool-aid (what?), deep fried rice crispy treats (really?), deep fried butter (I am not kidding!). We did gobble up some giant smoked turkey legs though (Yum!), but missed out on the fried frog legs (shucks!). 

All dressed for the Fair

We made it to California last Friday after a looooong drive. It took us 6 days to drive from Anchorage to San Diego. We took breaks every night and stayed in hotels except for one night where we almost ran out of gas in a small town in Canada. We made it to a gas station at 1am in the morning which happened to be closed until 8am the next morning so we had to sleep in the car so we could fill up when they opened. That was pretty much the most eventful part of our trip other then a small rock cracking our windsheild, thank God. The drive down was beautiful, we saw a bunch of black bears just hanging out on and off the road, saw some beautiful wild horses, a large porcupine crossing the street and one GIANT brown bear that stopped on the side of the road and stared at me as I drove past. Penelope did amazing for being in the car so long we had maybe 3 minor incidents where she got a little fussy but other then that she was great. So good in fact that dad is treating her to a trip to Disneyland next week. Wheee!

We have been enjoying the nice weather here in sunny southern California. Especially Penelope who is having a blast playing outside and even enjoyed some splashing in the bay. We are still adjusting to the heat and both Pen and I have complained a few times about it being too hot. (Me more then her.) Chris on the other hand was in heaven the few days he was here before heading back up to work. He will be back next week and we will have 3 weeks to enjoy all the fun things to do in San Diego together. We are going to be hanging out here for a couple of months and then will start looking for a place in Bakersfield. I am anxious to get settled in our new life but am looking forward to spending time with family and just hanging out.

Here are a few pics of our drive down...