Cali Trip Part 1

Are you ready for this? I've decided to break it down so that if you can only handle so much of me and this blog--you can come back another day.  See how thoughtful I am?  So.  Here we goooooooooooooo. Obviously with there being so many pictures, you can enlarge the collages to see them better...

Saturday

Travel days don’t really count as part of a vacation (for me) because it’s kind of a pain to get from the apartment to the hotel.  We were sure Cole was going to give us huge reactions to the airplane ride.  Not so much.  He was more impressed with the emergency instructions pamphlet than looking out the window.  Then once the TVs were working—he was a goner.  (Dear Jetblue, I love you…a lot).  He did enjoy looking out at the sky once we were flying through some thick clouds and he was totally calm about being 25,000 feet in the air.  Once I taught him how to force a yawn out to pop his ears he was perfectly content.

Once we landed at the Long Beach Airport it was pretty much what you’d expect…get your luggage, go pick up your car rental and head towards your hotel.  We stayed at a nice place that was within walking distance to the park called Desert Palms.  When we checked in and got to our room it was not what I expected and looked much different than the pictures on the website.  So, even though I just wanted to lay down and take a nap, I went down and very kindly (but firmly) explained that this was not the room we thought we were getting.  After looking at another room and not being impressed (because it was essentially the exact same layout) we were given a nicer room in a newly remodeled section of the hotel (at no additional charge).  I was glad I said something because we were staying for a week and we wanted to be comfortable!

The rest of the day is kind of a blur…so nothing exciting must have happened.  Oh, we picked up some groceries to last us for the week.  Very exciting.  At bedtime Cole was thrilled to be sleeping on a sofa sleeper.  He was giddy with excitement.  You’d think the sofa sleeper WAS Disneyland.  It was so cute how just the tiniest things can be so exciting to a child.

Sunday


It was glorious to wake up to a balmy 75 degrees instead of a freezing 40 degrees in Utah. We got ready for church and headed over to the closest ward to where we were staying. We stayed for sacrament meeting and then got ready to feel the Spirit at the beach. Three of Danny’s brothers met us at the church and we hung out the rest of the day. I’m sure Cole was a little bored with all the adults around him but he loves his Uncles and I’m glad he gets to spend time with them. It’s important to me that he has a good relationship with his extended family.


I think my favorite beach of the ones I’ve visited is Corona del Mar which is where we ended up going. The water was freezing but Cole and Danny didn’t seem to mind. Cole was thrilled to be covered with sand and I was thrilled to soak up the sun. The beach was beautiful and the rocks and little creatures were pretty cool too. 

[BELOW]

This is what I had to work with while trying to get Danny and his brothers together for a picture...

Doesn't Cole look like he's in paradise?

Danny and I have a picture taken in this exact same spot (the family and couple photo shown below) from when we were engaged. A little fun fact for you...

After leaving the beach we found a great park so we could actually sit on the grass in the shade and talk. We had PB&H sandwiches and chocolate cake. Yum.