Our trip to California was SOOOOOOOOO great! We flew space available so we had to be flexible and go with the flow, but that worked out perfectly for me and mine. Our first flight to Cali was dropped because of too much cargo (so they weren't taking any passengers), but two days later we caught the next flight to Cali and it took us exactly where we wanted to be.... San Diego. We had a great time at my Dad's. Everyday was fun and there were so many places to see. We went out just about everyday and got to walk around on hiking trails and the like. There was a playground close that was great for the kids to go to. My dad is a lot of fun on a daily basis. He's always doing something that makes me smile and laugh. My youngest sister is the same and my kids loved hanging with their aunt. My younger sister was also able to come down and see us (she's a college goer and is graduating!!!) and we had a lot of fun together. I got my youngest sister hooked on Firefly.
We hit the zoo, Wild Animal Park, Disneyland, California Adventures, and got to see some really pretty vistas in La Jolla. It was over WAYYYYYYYYY too fast. Getting home was a little trickier and we had to drive north to Fairfield (seven hour drive) and we were there three days trying to get a flight out to Hawaii before we gave up and went to Japan instead (there was a couple that was a category above us and they had been there two weeks trying to get a flight out to Hawaii so I knew we weren't going ot make it out any time soon). We got the flight to Yokoto and spent three days there as well, which was fun. We couldn't rent a car so we got to walk everywhere (which I enjoyed..... everything was close together). We didn't get a chance to go out into Japan and look around because we spent most of our time at the passenger terminal trying to get a flight out, but there was a children's lounge there where the kids could play and I spent my time finishing some knits.
From Japan we went to Okinawa and got to see Mt Fuji from the air. I wish I had gotten a picture because it was so awesomely impressive. From there we stopped for about an hour before continuing home. I will definitely do it again as soon as I get enough money saved. It cost us about $2000 for everything which is much cheaper then the $4500 just for plane tickets that we would have spent. Maybe next time I'll try to go all the way to the east coast. Next time I want a nice vacation I definitely will be going to visit my dad. We're hoping to get San Diego as our next station which would be great because then I could maybe work for my dad.
