Livin the California Dream

Spencer and I went to California over Memorial Day weekend with some friends, and it was probably the best/worst vacation ever. We started out on Wednesday night driving to Vegas to meet up with Ty, Jess, and Levi. We were staying at the Paris hotel, so we parked in the garage, left our luggage in the car and ran to meet up for dinner. Well two hours later we decided to take our belongings to our room.. Much to our surprise, when we got to the car my purse was sitting underneath the front driver's side tire. Spencer looked at me like, what the crap did you put your purse under the tire for?! And although I often do random crazy things that make absolutely no sense whatsoever... this was not of my doing. Shocked I started rummaging through my purse to see if anything had been taken... fortunately for us they didnt take any credit cards, birth certificates, social security cards, or even gift cards that I had in my wallet.. all they took was the cash.. which happened to be our tithing money that I'd just pulled out of the atm. darn. Well, I guess its only money, so we hauled our junk in and got ready for bed. The next morning Jess was looking for a knife to cut some muffins we brought. I told her she could use mine! Then I went to my PURSE for my handy dandy pocket knife that I always take on vacations... gone. Yup. Gonzo. they took my knife! Freaking lame. I was so ticked! Well I tried to get over it, we left Vegas, hit Einsteins (for the first of 5 times during that trip), and headed to Cali! We got in around 3, so we decided to hit the pool before we went to dinner. I immediately went for my camera, because I wanted to take loads of pictures during this trip. Well, my camera was also in my PURSE, and it was also gone. ARG! I couldnt believe it! I was fine about the cash, I was fine about the knife! But my camera!! I am not fine about that! All of our pictures were on there!! What was I going to do with out a camera on this trip!? Not okay. Not okay. Not okay. Luckily, I have an awesome husband, and he lifted my spirits with the promise of a new camera when we got home. He is awesome. So we paddled around in the pool, went to dinner at BJ's, and hit the hay so we'd be ready for an early morning trip to the beach! 

As many of you know, my dear husband is incredibly athletic.. He is also incredibly in shape. He loves to go running, and work out.... I do not. So, while he was running along the sandy Huntington Beach area at 7am, I was reading my book and burying my toes in the sand here.

Lovely isnt it?

I ate my bagel and read my book with the sound of the ocean just a few feet away. Aaahhhhhhh.. so relaxing. If only I had a bajillion dollars so that I could buy one of those cute condos right across the street from HB, then Spencer and I would stay at the beach all day long with our kiddos and never have to work again ever. Oh, if only. Friday was our day of just us, because Ty, Jess, and Levi went to Disneyland! Well I dont like Disneyland, I know I know, dream crusher. Whatever. Its just that I would rather wait for 45 min in a line for a roller coaster that I actually enjoyed, then for Its A Small World. (That is actually one of my favorite rides at Disney. haha go figure) Im sure it will be more fun when we have kids, but until then, I'll stick with the big kid rides. Anyway, we started our morning off by going to the Newport Beach Temple.

 Oh my word that is a beautiful place! I absolutely love the temple!! There is such a great feeling there, and it definitely makes your day better! I wish I could start every morning by going to the temple! I cant wait for next weekend when we get to be sealed in the Manti Temple!!! Its going to be so great!!! After the temple we went to breakfast, at Einsteins of course. And then Spencer had an online test to take while we were there, so he studied at the Library for a bit and then took it on their computers. After we grabbed a bit to eat and headed to the theaters!! Spencer FINALLY took me to see 

THE AVENGERS!!!

And it was AMAZING. if you havent seen it yet, go. Now. Stop reading this, drop everything you are doing, and just go. Its that good.

After the movie we ran to Target for this sun hat that I am absolutely in love with! It also SAVED my face/neck from being fried! On Saturday Spencer and I decided that we were going to be terrible travel buddies, and not do anything but stay at the beach... all. day. long. It was heavenly! There was beach volleyball, frisbee tossing, laying out, and homemade sandwiches. (we brought a cooler).  We also did the same thing on Sunday! However, Saturday night we went to Ruby's for dinner, and while waiting for our table, we watched a nice gentleman cast out his fishing line off of the back side of the pier.. 5 minutes later, his line goes tight, he's caught something! Well not only did he catch something, but he caught a SHARK! A real, live Shark! It was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen. 

This is him. This is the exact shark that we watched get caught, and reeled up to the pier. It was thrashing like you wouldnt believe, but they got him!!! I've never seen a shark caught before, so this was cool!

Definitely a memorable way to end the vacation!!! 

(at least it was for me! Spencer still had 10 more hours of driving... I slept for probably 9 of those hours.. poor guy.)