Ryan's grandma passed away in February. She was 94 and had outlived her husband, all three kids, and her friends. Her grandkids decided to get together at her house for a BBQ during the summer as a final goodbye. As Watsonville is a 13 hour drive (without stops) from home, we figured we might as well turn it into a vacation trip. Elizabeth had to stay behind to work, so we were a family of 4 on a roadtrip. We left Wednesday afternoon and drove to Willows, CA. This made us about 2 hours from the Oakland Temple so we could do baptisms Thursday morning. The Oakland Temple has some special significance in our family. Ryan was sealed to his family there, and I don't think has been back since then. It's a beautiful temple, and we do enjoy being temple tourists. Their baptistry has the steepest, skinniest stairs we've ever encountered.
After my picture taking frenzy, we took a tour of the temple visitor's center. Then girded up our loins for big city traffic to see the Golden Gate Bridge. We've taken the girls before, but Annie and Maddie didn't remember it. We were so close. We could see San Francisco from the roof top garden. We might as well go.
We had to cross two toll roads to get there. We drove across the bridge before getting out of the car to take pictures. We need proof that we are adventurous parents and took them. Again.
When we arrived, the Golden Gate Bridge disappeared into the cloud bank.
Wait, the Golden Gate Bridge is orange?
The clouds started to clear out a little.
Then we drove the rest of the way to Gilroy, California. While it is about a half hour away from our true destination of Watsonville, hotel prices were less than half. The good news was that there is a Kannely Lane IN Gilroy, so of course we had to go find it. Ryan did examine the sign closely. How hard would it be if the sign "accidentally" found its way into our van? Probably not that hard. But we did leave it. We already have a street sign from this very road in our house.
I was told this sign (below) was retired, and is not ill-gotten gains.
I took another picture of the street sign from the other direction. It's a nicer view, but my family was too squinty-eyed from the setting sun to take a picture from this direction.
It worked out that we stayed in the same hotel as Michael and his family. We had a picnic dinner at Mt. Madonna with them. And then the next morning we all went to an old Catholic mission- San Juan Bautista. Again, this is somewhere we've been before, but it's been a number of years, and Annie and Maddie didn't remember it.
Catholic chapel. They really are ornate and attractive. Sometimes I wish our church buildings were more interesting to look at.
We were wandering around and there was a museum volunteer who was very excited to share the history of the mission. Tour guides cost extra, but this fellow was happy to give us a short extra narrated tour on his own time. And took a group picture of all of us.
Me: Ryan- why would you position the camera so it looks like the palm fronds are coming out of Annie's head?
I made him try again. And like the nice husband he is, he complied.
Afterwards, we went to Gizdich's for pie and lunch. Lunch took a very long time to get made, so we ended up eating about half of the pie before our sandwiches arrived.
We, oddly enough, bumped into Ryan's cousin Collin and his Aunt Paula while we were there. They were picking up pies for the BBQ the next day. Once our appetites had been satiated, we visited with family at Grandma Skip's house. It was weird and sad to be there when she was not.
We had one last stop before the end of Friday. We went to Martinelli's for cider sipping, and to purchase drinks for Saturday's BBQ. They do a free tasting, which we haven't tried before. They have a lot of flavors I've not had the pleasure of sampling.
Whew. Friday done.
Saturday morning we went to the beach.
The only right way to make jumping pictures is to make videos and then stop the videos at the best point of the jump. We had some fun.
I wanted in on the fun.
Sometimes my hair is just too much. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and we tried again.
We had the BBQ lunch. Collin did an excellent job cooking us the traditional skirt steak on the charcoal BBQ in the backyard. We filled our bellies, and exchanged stories and memories. Then we went through pictures and Christmas ornaments and other odds and ends. People grabbed special items with good memories.
There was one last photo session in front of Grandma Skip's house. It was a brand new house in the 60s and she had raised her family there.
I think this was recreating a cousin picture from sometime way, way back when.
And here are all of the Oakes cousins, minus Brian.
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