Journey to the Happiest Place on Earth!!

So, my family went on a semi-spontaneous trip to Disneyland at the end of January.

If you know my family at all, you know this is very unlike us. :) But it was a good time to go. Shauna had just graduated BYU and was still job hunting, Kristie has the semester off school while she prepares for her mission in March. And we'd heard that January is a great time to go to Disneyland to avoid the crowds. With the measles outbreak going on, we had a pretty good shot at an empty park.

The first day was the absolute best. The park was almost empty. We could (and did) walk onto any ride we wanted. Didn't even need to get a fast pass. We took a bunch of pictures with characters and we didn't even have to wait in line!

I quickly succumbed to the temptation to get a mouse hat, while everyone else resisted... which resulted (as usual) in people thinking I was the youngest in our family instead of the oldest, but whatever. :)

We got to see the parades in both parks (Disneyland and California Adventure). We waited for a little bit to see the Disneyland one, but we walked right up to the California Adventure one when it was starting and managed to find an awesome spot.

Waiting for the Disneyland parade

The second day, we mostly spent in California Adventure. There were a lot more crowds than the day before, and we had to wait in lines for rides, but never for very long. The longest was half an hour (yes, I made my family wait half in hour for the Peter Pan ride... okay, I didn't make them, but they knew I wanted to, so they supported me in my choice. :) And yeah, I know the Peter Pan ride isn't in California Adventure--we did some park hopping! It was still really fun, but not quite as perfect at the day before.

One cool and kind of funny experience. We wanted to try this Toy Story ride called Midway Mania, but Shauna and Mom get a little bit motion sick, and there was a sign out front warning that this ride could cause motion sickness. There was also a 30 minute wait to get on to the ride. There was much debating whether or not Mom and Shauna wanted to try it. Mom finally asked an employee about it, and when he couldn't quite convince us that the ride was good for everyone in our family, he offered to let me, Dad, and Kristie skip the line to ride it to see if it was something Mom and Shauna could handle.  Just like that, he whisked us through to the handicap access point and let us on the ride, no waiting. And once we were done, we collected Mom and Shauna, and he let us skip the line again to go through together.

Excellent customer service. Who knew motion sickness could come so in handy? :)

At the end of the day, we watched the Fantasmic show. We got fastpasses in the morning so we had a great place to watch. It's quite an impressive show--I liked it a lot. When it was over, we had five minutes left before Disneyland closed, so we frantically ran into Pirates of the Caribbean for one last ride. Pirates has always been one of our favorites, because it's awesome, and because it's high capacity so the line is always short. We probably rode it 5 or 6 times in those 2 days. It was a great way to finish things up.

On our last day in California, we headed to Huntington Beach. Dad grew up in California, and when he was a kid, his family brought visiting relatives to Huntington because it has fire pits there, so they could roast hot dogs when people got hungry. We had a great time just chilling at the beach.  I was too much of a coward to go into the cold water, but Shauna and Kristie had a ball wading in and looking for shells.

The whole trip was amazing and so relaxing. Disneyland really is one of the happiest places on Earth. The little kids that come there are so happy and so excited! For them it is a dream come true.

I've made some happy memories there myself over the years and I intend to keep going back. :) I miss it a lot already!

Girls' Trip

Meet Lori and Hayley.

The three of us have been BFFs since middle school. This summer, we decided we FINALLY needed to go on a girls' trip. I don't know why it's taken us this long. We headed out to San Diego, one of my very favorite cities in the entire world.

Everyone assumed we were college girls on vacation, which was kind of fun. :) We had a hard time convincing the rental car guy we were old enough to get a car. (Thank goodness for IDs, huh?)

Oh, and speaking of cars... I DROVE IN CALIFORNIA AND NOBODY DIED. I've been terrified of California traffic since I got stuck in rush hour traffic near Corona on a business trip (my coworker was driving). It seemed like bumper to bumper traffic with everyone still miraculously going the speed limit.

Traffic in San Diego was much calmer... Not too different from Colorado or Utah, actually... although perhaps with more courteous drivers. :) Getting over my fear of driving in California is a huge deal. Maybe that takes me one step closer to actually moving there (although I do worry a bit about the cost of living).

We ventured to as many sites as we could fit into 5 days.

Such as the San Diego Safari Park:

We went as soon as it opened and beat the crowds. We really lucked out with the animals. They were almost always out at the front of their enclosures when we came by.

Of course we had to stop and ride the zoo carousel. The ride operator gave us a hard time. "Are there children with you?" No. No, it's just us.

I rode the deer, of course, since Lori's nickname for me is Bambi. After snapping pictures of my friends, I spent the rest of my ride trying to take selfies and laughing hysterically at the poor results. I kept up a running commentary so my friends knew what I was doing... and of course the ride operator overheard me and gave me a hard time. What can I say? Sometimes I'm a dork.

Best shot!

On our way out of the zoo at the end of the day, we ran into a cheetah on a leash! (which really makes me want to keep one as a pet. Although his eyes creeped me out a little.)

Hayley got a great shot of the zookeeper warning us to stay back as they walked past.

We spent a lot of our trip hanging out at various beaches.

La Jolla Beach! Complete with sea lions (don't worry, this one was asleep)

Silver Strand Beach! (Great for shell collecting)

Mission Beach! Where we went boogie boarding.

Ocean Beach! (Does that name crack anyone else up?) Features its very own pier. AND we got to see the tail end of a surfing competition.

On our last day (well, my last day... the girls got to stay for one more), we started off by traveling to Balboa Park.

It's gigantic and features lots of museums and gardens. We paid a visit to the lovely Botanical Gardens there.

After that, it was off to Little Italy for lunch.

Then to Point Loma to check out the historic lighthouse there, and to take a look at the Cabrillo tide pools. While that area was beautiful, unfortunately we arrived at high tide and so no tide pools were visible.

We finished the day by visiting Sunset Cliffs in the hopes of seeing a gorgeous sunset. Unfortunately it was cloudy, but we did come across a sailor's beach wedding right there on the cliff! We slipped up closer to listen in (although I wasn't quite brave enough to snap a picture of their special moment... That seemed too creepy.)

And of course, what better way to finish off a California trip than dinner at In N' Out?

All in all, it was a spectacular trip, and it left me feeling a little more in love with California. Maybe I  will end up there someday.

San Diego

Some highlights of my San Diego trip:

Cruising around the city in my coworker's red convertible (with the top down, of course).
Trying lobster for the first time (it tastes great, you just can't let yourself think about what it would look like if there was more than a tail on your plate).
Seeing the beautiful San Diego temple. It's one of my favorites. If I marry a California boy, that's where we're going.
Relaxing on a private deck on the harbor, watching the stars over the ocean.

I definitely want to go back for a real vacation... Who's in?

NARME!!!

So I am in the airport waiting to head back to Utah after an amazing week at NARME (National Association of Relationship and Marriage Education... conference... yeah). Dr. Hawkins has been trying to get me to go for years, but as a grad student I just didn't have the money for it, and it was usually far away.

I LOVED it!!! Everyone there was so nice, and so united in the cause to save families. Many people were very open in sharing that they felt called by God to this work. That's how I feel, too. It was like meeting the other members of God's army called to fight for the family.

I hope I get to go back in the future.

My coworkers are all amazing people. I don't get to see them very often in person--usually just once every two months, but it had been four months this time. Our meetings are typically one day, so spending four days with all of them was a new experience, and a very positive one. We are all friends at HRC (and also professionals, of course). I enjoyed spending time with everyone.

All the girls on the Comm Team even got to go to Disneyland together last night! We had a blast! They are Disneyland pros--they knew the best places to go and the best ways to avoid the lines. It wasn't very crowded, so we went on all the big rides (except the Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain, and the Haunted Mansion were all closed :( ). I will say Disneyland is different as an adult. I still had fun, but it wasn't quite as magical as I remembered... and it seemed a lot smaller, too. Still, I'd love to go back for a full day sometime! And I want to take my kids there someday. I watched all the cute little families running around--I think Disneyland is a lot more fun with kids.

Anyway, looks like my plane's here! Catch y'all later. :)