California Trip

Now that it's been months later after taking a much needed vacation, I think I should probably post about our memories before I forget them!

Monday (June 25th) we hung out in OKC and went shopping. We checked into our hotel, had dinner, and just relaxed. We had a 7:00 a.m. flight in the morning, so that's why we decided to stay the night instead of getting up at 3:00 a.m. to make the flight.

Tuesday morning, we tried to keep Kort asleep to at least the airport, but uh, that never happened. He didn't fall back asleep until during the flight - which was perfect anyway. We got into Orange County Airport around 9:45 (11:45 our time) and took the shuttle to get our rental car, which was a Mazda 3 - pretty nice, but too small for what we'd buy, but it was perfectly fine for the next couple days. We found an In-N-Out immediately!!! YUM! Our next destination was the shop for Clay's scuba trip. We drove to Venice Beach and while Clay was getting fitted, Kort took a long nap :) That took a good hour. I had previously planned to hang out at Newport Beach and check out that Temple, but since it was now out of our way, we were super close to downtown L.A. and the Temple, so we drove there and checked out the grounds and Visitor's Center. So pretty! Add another Temple to our list that we've seen! We also made a quick stop on the beach in Venice. I wanted to find the popular spot where you see everyone biking and roller blading, but I had no idea what area and I was just wanting to get out of the car. It was fun to watch Kort enjoy the sand for the first time though! We checked into our Anaheim Hotel, got settled, and then met up in downtown Disney with Barbara and crew (Brandon, Leland, and Barbara - Barb's mom) for dinner at Napoli's. We got these ginormous pizzas which were really good. We went back to the hotel after while everyone else went back in the park.

Wednesday morning Clay and Brandon set off for their scuba trip on Catalina Island. Kort and I left with the other three to hit up Disneyland! Kort was already asleep before we even got to the front gates. It wasn't bad having Kort there. The rides have parent passes. So I stay with Kort outside a ride while everyone goes through the standby line. Once they get back, I can take someone with me through the fast pass line to go through quicker. This way you're not wasting hours waiting to go through :) It was nice. In the meantime, whoever had Kort would walk around, go on kiddie rides, or whatever. Kort did fantastic on those rides, like Winnie the Pooh, Little Mermaid, The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a few more that he could just sit on my lap and see all the colors! We were able to get a Hopper pass and go into California Adventure Land and go on Screamin' California and Soarin' California! Kort wasn't a fan of the carousel, by the way :) Clay and Brandon met up with us for dinner and Clay took Kort home so I could go back on some adult rides. We only ended up going to Tower of Terror, but that was perfect. The park also had this outside club that was an Alice in Wonderland theme. It was pretty cool.

Thursday Clay and I dropped off the rental car at LAX to pick up his parents and take a shuttle to the Catalina Express Ferry. We met everyone else there, ate some lunch, and boarded the boat. Catalina Island was amazing! We walked maybe a half mile or so to our hotel and just relaxed the rest of the day checking out the "beach" (there wasn't much area of sand so it was pretty small), going to dinner and exploring.

Friday morning we played in the sand before we had our underwater glass submarine ride scheduled. It was actually pretty cool. You could buy "torpedos" of food to shoot off once we got around a bunch of fish. It was amazing how fast the fish would swarm to the food. I've never seen so many fish in my life, and right all around us!

That afternoon Carol watched Kort while the rest of us went snorkeling. Can I say I looked pretty dang hot in a wet suit? JUST KIDDING!!! Our guide was great. I'm glad we had a guide, and wet suits. I was pretty much freezing by the end of the tour, well at least my ears were frozen and hurt. Once you stepped in the water, a couple feet out there were fish swimming all around your feet - and you couldn't see them outside the water. Fish were constantly all around you throughout the whole trip. We found some sea urchins and a sea cucumber - basically a really big, slimy worm. Nasty.

That night after Kort went to bed, Brandon, Barb, Clay and I checked out the town. We had fun visiting the different shops and walked to Descanso Beach. They had cabanas and chairs all out, but they were soaking wet so we just enjoyed them - this was all in the dark. Oh, and we might have had a picture taking fest making stupid faces. That was plenty of fun! We walked around the Casino, which isn't a gambling one, only a museum and movie theater. Great night away from the kiddo ;)

 Saturday we decided to rent golf carts and drive around the town around the huge homes, past the zipline, up to the highest point we could on a road, and overlook the Pacific Ocean! It was just gorgeous! We also saw a bunch of deer right off the road towards the end of our drive. We took a bus to the Botanical Gardens. HA, that was a joke, probably because it was in the summer so it looked like a desert. At least we enjoyed a hike. The guys also rented some kayaks for an hour and enjoyed paddling around the inlet, while us girls got ready to lay out on the beach :)

That evening was time to sail back to civilization to the main land. Good thing I got a hoodie because it was cold on the way back! Barb insisted on being a taxi and taking turns driving people back to the hotel so we could save money, but it took probably 3 hours total from leaving to getting everyone back. Oh well. We checked into our AWESOME Disney Marriott Hotel - BEST Hotel I've stayed in (except once for in Coeur d' Alene;) ). We ate at Red Robin - YUMMMM - late that night.

Sunday morning everyone parted ways and took a bus to the airport and left for home.  The night before I was trying to find out where we caught our bus for the airport (I ordered cheap tickets from getawaytoday.com - cheap Disney tickets, etc.) and the hotel internet was retarded as we could only check it from a computer in their business lounge. And then, our flight tickets through priceline had changed our flight to a later time so I tried confirming and printing our tickets the night before and so I was making all these phone calls trying to get it figured out which I ended up not. Very frustrating night with nothing figured out. Well, the bus ended up picking us up outside the hotel, so that was nice. We got to the airport early, thank goodness, because it took about an hour and a half to get our flight figured out. After that everything was just peachy. We got back to OKC late and picked our car up from the hotel and about an hour into the drive, we came into one of the towns along the highway and Clay forgot to look at the speed limit and the ONLY car happening to drive towards us was a cop. PO PO pulled us over! Luckily we got no ticket, but the warning he gave Clay went into the system so next warning = ticket :( We finally got home and went to bed! So nice to be home. Great vacation. Maybe next one we'll get together on a house boat at Lake Powell - anyone got connections there??? :) Really. Ok, now that this was a novel.
Hope you enjoyed our adventure, if you're still reading :)

*If any of you know how to make collages for blogger, I'd appreciate any feedback :) I've always done it on photobucket, but it's so confusing now with all the "layers" and that whole process.