Fri, September 26

After morning devotions, the Tanksley and FitzGerald kids posed for a group photo and then headed off to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.  

We made a stop in Brea where Liz's dad Carl lives.  Joshua made a bee line for Grandpa's piano where he treated us to a couple of his original compositions.

The drive this morning tuckered out John who paused for a brief cat nap before lunch.

After a great lunch at the Home Town Buffet, the kids and Liz posed with Grandpa in front of the gazebo in his backyard.

Back on the road, we found something we haven't experienced in quite a while--traffic!

Continuing down the freeway, we prepared to enter Los Angeles.

Shannon could barely contain herself with excitement as she prepared to enter the American Girl Place in Los Angeles.  She has been waiting for over a year to go here, and we finally got the chance.  She and her doll Elizabeth (from the Felicity series of 1774) paused long enough for a picture before walking through the doors.

Our first stop was the beauty salon where Elizabeth got a special pony tail flip hairstyle.

Shannon had so much fun looking at all the outfits.  In the end she decided on matching outfits for both Elizabeth and herself.

The boys hung out with their Star Wars books while Shannon and Mom shopped.

A very happy American Girl was finally ready to leave with her packages.  Notice Elizabeth hanging out in the tree house with Kit Kittredge?  (She's the one with the red dress.)

While Liz drove, the kids took turns playing on her laptop computer.  Shannon enjoyed playing on the Webkinz web site since she was able to get internet reception even on the highway.

We felt it was only appropriate that we would enjoy an In-N-Out burger since this was our last night on the road.  After all, that's what we had on our first night, right?

In all we traveled 270 miles up the California coast today.  Since it was Friday, we had a hard time finding a motel that was open for drop-ins late in the evening, but the Lord provided us a comfortable room in Santa Maria.