We took a trip to California in August of '06. We spent the first few days in the Bay area visiting Aunt Judy.

Most of Friday was spent in Berkeley. We started in the Berkeley Adventure Playground. You can see some photos here.  After lunch at Chez Panisse, we went to the Berkeley Rose Garden .

The next day was spent in Silicon Valley, at cousin Sara's birthday party and visiting my college friend Jon Nimer and his lovely family. A wonderful day, but unfortunately we have no pictures.

Then we had our day in San Francisco. Tara had a great time in Zeum. But unfortunately Uncle David hurt his foot. Judy and Carole took care of David, while the rest of us rode the cable cars to Fisherman's Wharf .

The next day we were off to Yosemite. A great visit, even though Tara, Matthew, and I saw a bear walking around the tents not 30 feet away from us.

We then worked our way south to Los Angeles. Matthew really wanted to go to LaBrea, and Tara wanted to go to Hollywood, so we did both. We also enjoyed a visit to the beach and pier at Santa Monica, and a fantastic late-night dinner with my high-school friend Jeff Kornreich at Venice Beach.

No vacation is complete without an amusement park visit. At least the kids think so. We had a great day in Legoland on our way to San Diego. The kids love driving, and I'm glad to still have a few years before they are asking for the keys.

A real highlight was spending a day in Mission Beach with my cousin Miriam and her husband Mike We missed their wedding, but we made up for it with a great day sailing, kayaking, boogie-boarding, and pretending to be Californians.

The girls spent their last day at the San Diego Zoo. Sorry, no photos yet.