I finished up at my conference on Friday, and arrived back at the hotel with a jigsaw puzzle that all conference attendees were given by Google. Leah and Christina just love puzzles, so we attempted to finish it as quickly as possible after ordering in some Italian food. Did we finish? I’ll give you a hint:

The hint is “no, we did not.”

On Saturday, we were going to drive to the coast and have some fun at the beach. Did the weather cooperate? I’ll give you a hint:

The hint is “no, it did not.”

On the way to Santa Cruz, we toured the big companies of Silicon Valley: Google, Yahoo!, and Apple. (By “toured,” I mean that we drove by the buildings and took pictures of their signs.)

This is the front door of Google. They sure do love their palm trees.

(The Computer History Museum is where my conference was held.)

The building where Google works on their “Android” cellphone operating system has some interesting sculptures outside:

(There is symbolism to the cupcake, donut, and eclair – I can explain it in person if you want.)

The rain did let up once we were in Santa Cruz long enough for us to take these pictures. That’s the Pacific ocean behind us.

After Santa Cruz, we drove to San Jose and toured the Winchester Mystery House. It’s a mansion that the wife of one of the original Winchester Rifle Company heads never stopped remodeling, so it has a lot of interesting rooms. With how much they charge to go through it, it gives a different meaning to the term money pit. Namely, there’s a pit full of money in the basement. (Leah generously volunteered to wear Gabriel during the tour:)

After we got back to the hotel, Christina and Leah went shopping for a little bit and I worked on the puzzle some more. Did I finish? I’ll give you a hint:

The hint is “no, I did not.”

The flight back was mostly uneventful – a short delay, 4 hours of entertaining Gabriel, and we were back in Minnesota. I don’t have a good way of wrapping up this post, so here are some pictures of Gabriel.