Our Trip: Part 1

I am sure this is the longest I've ever gone without blogging!  I have thought many times over the past month "Oh....I need to write about that!" but to sit down and do it has been difficult with just how busy we've been.  The boys and I are pulling double-duty with school because we're going to Vail for 3 days next week.  We don't want to take school with us!   

The past month has been an exciting one, and also a busy one.  I'll start with our cruise.  My mom and Linda flew in on 24 March to some nice weather.  We all woke up on the 25th with a pretty good dusting of snow.  The kind of snow that would have halted the entire Southeast, but not Colorado.  The roads were fine and we headed to the airport on our first BIG travel adventure in 9 years.  (We went on an adventure for our honeymoon and our first anniversary...it's been a while since then!)  We landed in LA and picked up our b-e-a-utiful convertible.  

(We rented this same car on our honeymoon!  Sentimental!)

We ate at one of the highly recommended restaurants, In-N-Out, for lunch, and found out we really like it!  We ate there 2 more times before we got home.  

Our first fun activity on the itinerary was to go see the filming of a TV pilot.  Unfortunately for us, Alyssa Milano and the rest of the cast had invited their friends and family, thus taking up most of the extra seats.  Only the first few "regular" people in line got to go in.  They did, however, give us a green card that ensures we get VIP status when we come back.  I am REALLY hoping we get back there before we move. (HINT HINT, babe!  :)  Plane tickets are VERY cheap to Cali from CO!  

We decided to head from LA to Camp Pendleton and we stopped at a Red Robin on the way.  Something familiar!  Plus Matt had a free hamburger for his birthday!!  We entered Camp Pendleton the way the directions said to and we drove for over 20 minutes ON BASE before we got to the hotel!  That place is HUGE!  Our room was really nice and a very good price!  They also had great mugs for coffee...the perfect size!  (HUGE!)  Only problem was the coffee itself was horrible!

The next morning was FANTABULOUS!  We went to meet T.J. Baden of Baden Guitars.

Mr. Baden really supports our troops and actually sent Matt a guitar while he was in Iraq.  He and Matt spent about an hour and a half talking guitar, war, guitar, music, etc.  I took pics (of course) and we got to see his shop.  Matt was able to teach him a John Mayer lick...that was pretty cool!  Matt had sent Mr. Baden a flag that had flown over the mall at Adl and it was on the wall of their conference room.  I did get a neat pic of the two of them standing in front of that flag.  And one-offs, the the many guitars that will never be put into production but they made them  as testers...AMAZING!  People can buy these but they're not really advertised...one of a kind guitars that are very high quality!  

After we left here, I had to go buy a camera lens.  Mine died, but it's been a good one!  Taken hundreds of thousands of pictures!  After Ritz Camera we headed to the Taylor Guitar Factory for a tour.   This first picture was was great!  Here we are at Taylor Guitars and there's a trash can filled with wood.  Some wood gets put into the finest guitars while the scraps are thrown into firewood box.  

Before.....

After.....

Same kind of guitar, at the beginning and end of the process.  I'm going to post all the pics from our trip on Shutterfly so if you want to see over 50 of the process, I can tell you how to see those!

Maybe Matt can write more about his experiences at these two guitar places later.  

After a great day of guitars, we went to a place my brother recommended, La Jolla.  It as absolutely beautiful there, and we got the BEST Starbucks frapps EVER!  

These birds loved getting sprayed by the waves.

Because we had so much fun these posts will share bits and pieces of our trip. I would love to write it all at once, but I have a life to live outside of the computer, and my boys are ready to play!  

~Jen