This isn’t the first time I’ve posted a “Monday Musings” post on a Tuesday.  And my guess is that it won’t be my last!  However, when I tried to blog this yesterday, I couldn’t even log into my blog.  Technical difficulties on a Monday should be outlawed.

But that’s a whole other issue.  I really wanted to share a few tidbits about our trip to San Francisco last week and a Monday Musings post is the best place to do that!  We ventured out to see some friends and it was so much fun to travel as a family across the country.  It just makes me even more excited about future trips with her!

So, onto some things we learned/discovered this past week:

• Locals refer to San Francisco as “SF”.  Not San Fran as I’ve been calling it for most of my life.  Who knew??
• If you think Cinnabon has giant cinnamon rolls, you’re wrong.  That award goes to Denica’s.  Even the little baby tried to take a bite!  Don’t worry, this is as close as she got to it.  And that’s just oatmeal on her face :-)

• The redwoods in California really are as large as they say they are.  The fact that several people (i.e. an entire group) can fit inside the trunk of one and there still be room to add more people is mind boggling to me.  And I’ve seen it in person now!
• Getting 7 people (even when 3 of them are little humans) into a selfie is no small task.  Which means, I’m pretty proud of this one.  Even if Shannon and I don’t seem to be looking at the right place on the camera ;-)

• We realized that we’ve now been to California every year since we’ve been married.  In 2012 we flew out to San Fran SF with tickets that I’d won on Delta through a Twitter contest.  True story.  In 2013 and 2014, we flew to Santa Barbara for United (a photography conference).  And this year we flew back to SF to visit the friends in the above selfie.  So now we’re trying to figure out when to go back in 2016 because clearly it’s a tradition!
• The west coast is just beautiful.  I’m an east coast/southern girl all the way, but I’ve been in every state on the west coast AND to British Columbia (Vancouver to be specific) and I’ve loved every stop I’ve made.  No wonder I keep going back!!
• Catherine loves to take her socks off, which I’m hoping means she will like to go barefoot and/or wear sandals most of the time like I do.  Which is why she’s barefoot while also wearing a hat in the photos below.  We made a quick stop overlooking the water to try and spot some whales but I wanted photos of us with her and the Pacific Ocean in the background.  Shannon said a pod of dolphins swam by, but I was a little distracted by these sweet faces and totally missed the dolphins!