Diamond Springs, CA

(karen)
Sat, 12/24
Here's a quick update on the preamble to our trip: We made a final trip to Oxnard with a dual purpose to A) drop off the last tidbits from the house and B) retrieve our passports from the filing cabinet. How many engineers does it take....? Yeah, we know. Shut up. That evening (Christmas Eve) we joined Brian and Kara for a final night of dinner and games like we've been doing for over four years. Our final goodbyes before leaving LA.

Sun, 12/25
On Christmas morning we rolled up our sleeping bags, packed up the cars and headed with the dogs up north to Diamond Springs, about half way between Tahoe and Sacramento. The kids were very excited until they realized this wasn't a trip to the dog park (at which point they fell asleep). We hit a lot of rain around Stockton but still managed to make excellent time. Later that night we shared Christmas dinner with some of Steve's family and got to answer many more questions about our trip.

Mon, 12/26
Yay, Christmas! Well not really, but today we open presents since yesterday was in transit. We received many lovely things but what will be most fun on the trip is our brand new GPS receiver! Somehow we'll have to figure out how to upload our traveled route. Sweeeeet. So today we rest, tomorrow we shop at REI for last minute goodies. Buenos noches!