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Welcome to Ahwatukeelife California

This section of the site is devoted to California. Many residents of Ahwatukee travel to California for business or pleasure and some of us are originally from there. We wanted to have a section where we can make information available about places most of us travel to regularly like San Diego, a sort of sister city to Phoenix especially in the heat of the summer and San Francisco with it's surrounding wine country which are perfect for an extended weekend getaway. We've added a couple of other locations that are home to friends and if you have any you would like to see - please email us at: articles@ahwatukeelife.com

My family and I spent the last part of October at Big Bear Lake in California. We stayed in a very cute cabin in Snow Summit Estates. There was foosball in the upstairs loft for the kids, a great yard space and a beautiful stone fireplace that we used every night we were there. We woke up to 30's in the morning and frost on the car, but sunshine and blue skies during the day with highs in the 70's. Hiking in Big Bear is practically an art, there are paths on all side of the lake and also a bike and hike path that circumnavigates the lake itself. The lake is low after several years of drought, but still a welcome change of view from the desert landscape we're used to.

Gallery of Big Bear and Carpinteria Photos

One of the weekends we were in Big Bear, we took a side trip down the mountain to visit Carpinteria Beach. It doesn't matter where we go in California, we always stop by a different beach for at least a day. It was a little overcast, but the sand was warm, even if the water wasn't. The kids don't seem to mind the colder water and they loved building sand castles, looking for shells and just generally running around wild. Carpinteria is a fairly small beach town that wasn't at all crowded this time of year, with cute little eateries and great people. There was a large family picnic at the state park and later in the afternoon several volleyball games got started. Carpinteria is the largest producer of avocados so this is also the location of the annual Avocado Fest held early every October. If you enjoy the beach, but are looking for a little more quiet and a fairly safe swimming area you should give Carpinteria a visit.