CALIFORNIA

We had SO MUCH FUN in California!!! 

Day 1 and 2

 We flew to San Fransisco and spent a couple days there.  It wasn't my favorite place for sure.  It is just a HUGE city with lots of very STEEP hills.  It was super fun to see it once and that was good enough for me.  The funnest thing we did was go to WICKED.   D and I both LOVED it.  It is such a good production. 

The second day we were there we went to the Oakland Temple.  We drove across the Bay Bridge to get there.  My mom told me that that is the bridge that fell down during the earthquake in the 1980's.  It cost $6 just to go across it.....stinking Toll roads!!  The Temple is so beautiful.  It kind of reminded me of the Bountiful Temple.  It is high up on a hill and overlooks all of Oakland and clear to San Fransisco.  It was beautiful on the inside and outside.  Dar and I ate lunch in the cafeteria and then did a session.  We love to go to church and the temple when we go on our trips!!!  

Then we drove towards the Golden Gate Bridge. It was SO COLD in San Fran....thats another reason it wasn't my fav place.  But we still drove around with the top of our car down...it was fun :)  About 20 minutes past the Golden Gate Bridge is a place called Muir Woods.  It is a forest of HUGE Redwood trees.  We hiked around there for an hour or two then drove back down the canyon.  so fun.  We ate dinner at Subway. 

  

This was the first hotel we stayed at.

 We walked around "China Town"  it is supposedly the biggest China Town in the US.  It was very Chinesey  there.  :)

Dar even got an official haircut from a China man himself.  We thought it was so funny that he had never heard of Salt Lake City or even Utah....funny.

This is the Orpheum Theatre where we went to see WICKED!!

Oakland Temple

 

 This is the view from the Oakland Temple...Luckily it was a nice clear day...not foggy...it was probly not foggy because it was windy!!

 

Golden Gate Bridge from distance...we felt like we were driving through heaven with all of the clouds.

Right after the bridge is a tunnel through a mountain.  There was quite a bit of traffic so we were stopped in the tunnel.  It was so funny, everyone kept honking their horns so that it would echo throughout the entire tunnel.  We were laughing so hard!!!

 

MUIR WOODS

 

 This is us in the redwood forest.  It was so pretty there.  I can't believe how big those trees are!!!

Day 3

This day we spent in Monterey California.  It is a cute little city.  It was Saturday when we were there.  We walked around the waterfront touristy area.  We saw a movie in 3D, then went to Monterey Aquarium.  They have a ton of sea life with sea horses and jelly fish and everything.  I discovered that my fav fish are sardines.  They had a huge tank there with 12,000 sardines and they just swim together and make awesome shapes.  It was a fun day!!!

We didn't take many pics there.  I don't know why but there was a HUGE candy store there with tons of candy.  This was a day we wished our kids could have been with us from the aquarium to the movie to this candy store.  Then they had a little store that was called EVERYTHING PINK...dang I should have taken a picture of it..it was like a girls dream store and of course everything was PINK.  D hated it.

Day 4

Today was Sunday.  We found a church and went at 9 o'clock...of course.   It was fun to meet the members there at that ward.  Then we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway right along the ocean.  It was so beautiful.  This was our longest driving day.  We drove through HUGE strawberry field and we could SMELL the strawberries.  We thought about stopping and snagging a few....but we didn't.  Then we drove through a broccli field...i didn't like the smell too much.  

 Then we drove up to this point...it was so pretty.  It was way more forresty than I imagined it would be.

Day 5

This was my MOST FAV place in all the places we went.  We spent Monday and most of Tuesday in SANTA BARBARA.  The hotel had these fun little beach cruiser bikes that we could check out...  I kept telling D he was on a "manly bike"  just so he would go with me.  I think he knew better though :)

We cruised along the beach front and found the YUMMIEST little restaurant called LA Super Rica.  It was mexican food and it was so yummy we went back for lunch the next day.  

Santa Barbara is just this perfect little city.  It was so sparkly clean and so nice.  

We went and played in the ocean a little bit and then went swimming and warmed up in the hot tub.  It was so beautiful and so fun to be together.

 

Day 6 and 7

Our last couple of days :(  Man vacations go so fast.  We went to our last destination which was Dana Point by Laguna Beach.  We stayed in the most beautiful hotel on a cliff up above the ocean.  This place was famous for its waves and there were surfers in the water from the minute the sun was up till after it went down.  it was so fun to watch them.  D and I even tried our best at body surfing.  We had SO much fun.  I do have to mention one funny point that I didn't realize till we were done.  I was the ONLY girl in a wet suit out body surfing and playing in the water.  Seriously when I sat down in my beach chair and took off my wet suit, I looked around and every girl I saw over the age of 12 was chilling in a bikini on the sand and in the sun.  Oh well...I am glad that I am not that kind of girl  :)  hehehe  I had so much fun playing with D in the waves.

This is the view from our room...so pretty.  I LOVE the ocean.

Another view.

Also the hotel we stayed at had TONS of real flowers all over.  The first day we got there they had yellow flowers.  The next day they had changed them to Red!!!  I loved these beauttful flower arrangements.