Ok, back to our previously-scheduled trip update!

We enjoyed a fabulous time with family and friends while in California, and our pictoral essay documents it below. Of special note was a meeting with Trish Freund - an American (also married to a German) who we lived near in Hamburg for a few years. They moved back to San Diego in 2007, and we had the opportunity to meet Trish and her darling twins for an afternoon at the Wild Animal Park in SD.

Photos….!
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Visiting San Diego Wild Animal Park with Trish and Lili (her son Olli is running around somewhere off-camera..):

Sophie’s first ride on a moving carousel animal (oops, hard to see Sophie, but really, she’s there…):

Happy couple in the wild animal tram ride:

There’s a wild animal!

Sophie is totally uninterested in wild animals:

Back at my folks house, we snap a photo for posterity..

Sophie steps out in mommy’s shoes:

A cloudy but entirely satisfying afternoon at Balboa with my bro & his family (we ate lunch at Ruby’s Diner - a 50s-style American diner - on the end of the Balboa Pier, then rode the ferry to Balboa Island and walked around admiring the houses):

And finally, our traditional “al fresco” lunch at the La Salsa by my bro’s house, accompanied by a bubbling fountain:

Soenke and Gina hang out with baby Levi:

Sophie chugs around the fountain in her chic new outfit:

Cousin Chase gives Sophie some love:

A little “lunch around the La Salsa fountain” video:

Now, on to Arizona !!!!!!