California Vacation!

 So Matt just graduated from Weber State with a Bachelors degree in Microbiology. I decided that for a present it would be fun to surprise him with a family trip to California! It was a total surprise to him, I called his worked and schedule some time off, his amazing sister Tina booked us hotels and Dad and Suzanne got us a rental car (we were nervous to take our high mileage pathfinder) his Mom and Grandma bought us tickets to seaworld! Not to mention everyone who gave us money so we could have some gas/spending money (my Grandparents Loveland and Middleton, my parents, Tina and Dave). We wrapped up a little baggy of sand and some sweddish fish and when he opened it he was totally confused! Then he opened the note which explained all the details! So we left for St. George on Thursday May 12th, Matt had an interview at biofire that morning (spoiler alert HE GOT THE JOB!) Then we stayed the night in St. George. We left early Friday morning for California! The kids did really great on the drive (big thanks to our dvd player!) and we got Brett and Tina's house around 5. We had a delicous dinner and chatted with Tina and Brett, while Claire and Pami played and Tyler chased the bunny all around the house. Then we followed Tina to the Hotel which was called Terrana.....And oh my goodness. I have never nor will I probably ever stay at a place that nice! It was so beautiful and up on a cliff over looking the ocean! Sadly it was too foggy to see the sunset but we got the kids in their suits and went down for a swim! They had a blast, I got in with them and Matt held Whitney. We got the kids bathed and in bed and once they fell asleep we order virgin strawberry daquires and sat out on the deck (in our robes ;) and listened to the ocean. Man it was dreamy! The beds were the most comfortable hotel beds I've ever slept on!

In the morning we order room service...I know fancy right?! It was so yummy. We headed out for Seaworld and the drive was....well a California commute so you can imagine! We got there around 10 oclock and it was surprisingly very busy! When we first got there we spent some time at the touch tanks but both Claire and Tyler were too afraid to touch much of anything (which really surprised me) Matt loved letting the little sucker fish cover his whole hand! It tickled wayyy too much for me although at the end of the day he made me get my hand covered ;) we then went over to the seaseme street land and road a few of the rides. The kids LOVED it and it was hard to pull them away to do much else! We had the all day eating pass which allows you to eat every hour (awesome I know!) so we grabbed some food and then headed to see the One Ocean show which is the show with the killer whales. It was so awesome! Crazy what they teach those huge animals to do! Then we headed over to the shark encounter exhibit which I really liked! At one point there is a convery belt that you stand on and there is a tunnel with a ton of sharks swimming above you! Kinda creepy but very cool. We bought Ty a big stuffed animal shark which he loves, Claire got her face painted, we ate some more food, Ty finally fell alseep and when he did Claire, Matt and I played a ton of arcade games! It was way fun and she won like 6 stufffed animals! I wanted to ride the manta ride so I did that while Matt took the kids to pet/feed the bat rays. That was really cool and Claire got brave enough to pet and feed them! We fed the sea lions and the kids loved that! We ate MORE food... I probably gained 10 pounds that day. Matt took the kids back to the play land and I took Whitney to go see the dolphin show (it was awesome!) When I got back to where Matt and the kids were he had let them get soaking wet from the splash pad! That was at about 7 so we decided to call it a day! We got to the hotel and the kids wanted to swim again so we went down to the pool. Matt swam with them this time while I held Whit. You can imagine how exhausted we all were so we fell sleep quick that night!

In the morning we headed up to Laguna Beach! When we got there we still had a few hours till check in so we decided to play on the beach. The kids had a wonderful time digging in the sand, looking for shells and running away from the waves! Matt took them for a walk down to the tide pools and we spend a good few hours playing. The hotel was literally a 2 minute walk from the beach and they had given us a key to get into the pool because our room wasnt ready yet so we went swimming, the water was much warmer than the ocean! Once our room was ready (which had direct access from the patio to the pool which was sweet) we thought about taking a rest but instead decided to go get lunch. We walked by the beach down to johnny rockets and had some delcious burgers. Then we walked across the street to a play ground and let the kids play around. Matt saw someone with a big bubble wand so he went to the beach store and bought one. Man was he popular! He blew bubbles for all the kids to pop for probably and hour. It was starting to get dark so we walked back to the hotel. Claire swam again while Matt and ty blew more bubbles. We got ty to bed and then claire and I walked to go pick up some sushi! We ate it our on our deck listen to the ocean! We all slept great that night!

In the morning we decided to hit the beach one last time before getting on the road and taking our LONG 13 hour trip home. The drive really wasn't as terrible as we both thought it would be and before we knew it we were back in Ogden. I cannot say enough how seriously amazing that vacation was. It was a much need break from our long 5 year journey for Matt to get his degree! Thank you a million times over to everyone for making this possible!! 

CALIFORNIA WAS A DREAM!!