Yes, for ten entire days, we ventured out of Santa Fe. We took our vacation in July; we hadn't been on a real vacation for several years, but when California decided that it would treat all people equally under the law and end discrimination against gay marriage, as positive reinforcement my partner of 27 years and I decided that the state of California is where we should drop some serious tourist dollars.
We took the Amtrak train from Lamy, NM with our two children to Fullerton, California. We visited Anaheim, San Clemente, Irvine, and San Diego. We went to the San Diego Comic Book Convention; Disneyland; Sea World; and the last game played by the women's Olympic softball team before they headed to Beijing. We also got married. As Shelly's dad said, after 27 years we hope it will last. But that's for another post.
Here are some of our pictures from California. (Above is a view from the scenic lounge car on Amtrak's Southwest Chief.)
The Comic Con was an overpopulated city of a place. We were very happy when my daughter found a familiar face, the wonderful comic artist Ryan Claytor, whom we had met during his tour through Santa Fe. He's talented and also extremely nice. E. loves his books and art. He was also kind enough to look at some of her work and made an impression with his suggestion to work on the concept of the establishing shot. 
We attended panels; walked through the fifty thousand vendor displays; watched people dressed as characters, such as the original Starship Enterprise bunch, as they wandered around hoping to be photographed; looked at the lines at portfolio review; and came away thinking: wow...that event is just plain Too Big.
Here's the San Diego County Clerk's Office. The people who work here couldn't be nicer and more helpful. We found that as a whole, San Diegans are laid back, polite, efficient, and a pleasure to deal with.
We also spent three days, yes three days, and yes we survived, at Disneyland. More about that below.
This is the "vending machine" at the Monsters, Inc. ride. Sugar, Salt and Fat and Blort were our favorites.
Here I am with Lucy on the morning of...oh no, wait, that's just how I felt. The picture is actually of a character named Max, who is either the nephew or son of Goofy. Lucy is holding Pluto. I kept getting the two confused but really, you shouldn't do that. To kids, they are infinitely different.
One of the excellent amusements is a session with Disney animators. Our older daughter enjoyed this very much.
This is a restaurant in Frontierland. It is kind of neat how everything in Disneyland is colorful, well tended, and clean. A person could get used to that; it's a bit troubling when you reenter the real world.
But we didn't do that for a while. 
