California Dreamin'

All the leaves were green....


And the sky was blue....

That's right! Jayson and I took a trip to sunny California! It was such a nice get away from the cold winter in Utah. We picked the right week to go too, I heard it was FREEZING out here. We've been wanting to take this trip for quite some time, but we kept putting it off, saying we couldn't do it for one reason or another. But, when January came and I found I had 80 hours of paid vacation time instead of the 40 I was expected we jumped on the opportunity. We knew if we kept putting it off we'd never do it, so we just went for it.



This is the harbor right next to our hotel. I love harbors. This will be making an appearance again in this post.

Told ya.

This was our last night there. We watched the sunset on the beach (this beach was also RIGHT next to our hotel). It was so beautiful and romatnic.

We also saw the San Diego temple and Jayson turned into Popeye.

We played in the sand too...oh how I love beach sand. Yes, that is a Stegosaurus.

We played right there for forever. It was absolutely blissful. It was chilly that day, so we decided not to swim, but we did plenty of playing in the water still. Jayson ran towards the water and then back again, racing the waves. I just jumped around in the waves like a kid in a candy shop. I cannot even express to you how much I LOVE the ocean. I love it more than anything else. I cannot figure out for the life of me why I wasn't born closer to it. It part of my very soul.

See?

We saw sea lions in their natural habitat! Funny little things. They sleep on the shore like this and when the waves come up high they just let them carry them out to sea. They don't even flinch. So funny.

Birds of Paradise amoung my top five favorite flowers. They're SO cool. They are also EVERYWHERE in California. I love it.

Jayson loves the Shark tunnel at Sea World!

This was our favorite of the shows. It was hilarious!

The sea horse is one of my favorite animals.

I am both enchanted with and frightened by these creatures for the very same reason: their gigantic size! They are so big! It's almost unfathomable.

Jayson got to pet a dolphin...

AND SO DID I!!! This has been on my bucket list since I discovered that dolphins existed! I was like a kid on Christmas morning! It costs $6.00 to pet the dolphin and feed him. I did it twice.

Confession: My secret ambition since I was in middle school is to be an animal trainer at Sea World.

CALIFORNIA ADVENTURES!

The Beast's Library!! This was SO cool. It was magical.

Aww...

I told you I love sea horses.

DISNEYLAND!!!! (when we got there I was seriously more excited than any child I saw.)

Waiting in line for the Indiana Jones ride. One of our favorites. Although, Space Mountain is my #1 favorite...you feel like you're flying through the sky!! Space Mountain ties for #1 with Indiana Jones for Jayson. It's nice and convenient to like the same rides. The Peter Pan ride also rocks.

I also LOVE Small World. I love how all of the cultures come together, all wearing white at the end. I love how it shows that although we're different, we can all be friends.

And some lovely pictures of our really awesome hotel.....

This was our view from the hotel. It was BEAUTIFUL! You better believe that I went out there ever morning when I woke up. We ate out there sometimes, and I had a lovely evening read out there. It was positively wonderful. I never wanted to leave that view.

Do you not LOVE the yellow walls?!

groovy, no?

We stumbled upon this right after I got done proclaiming that this was the best day ever. It's funny because I love cheese almost as much as I love the ocean.

The outside of our hotel.

Not pictured:

World of Color show at California Adventures. If you go there you HAVE to see this.

I was seriously blown away. It was so amazing. They do this beautiful water show, that would be cool by itself, but they use light to give the water all sorts of brilliant colors that go along with the sounds and songs. They also project scenes from movies onto the water. Sigh. I am such a water person anyway, so this was incredible for me.

The fireworks at Disneyland!
MY favorite part of the evening. I had never seen the fireworks at Disneyland before that and they did not disappoint. I may or may not have cried. I love the message….that dreams come true! I think every person should know that imagination is golden
and that dreams come true. You just have to know that dreams to come true! It’s a beautiful truth we still have in this world that so many seem so intent on destroying. This firework show gave me hope and reminded me of the true magic that is Disney. I love that they use a voice clip from Walt Disney himself during it (or was that during Fantasmic?) We also saw Fantasmic, which was fabulous! It was fun seeing so many characters performing. My favorite part was, of course, when Peter was fighting Captain Hook on the ship.

"While there is still imagination in the world, Disneyland will never be complete." -Walt Disney.
And thank goodness, because they're building a Little Mermaid ride!!! Little Mermaid was my favorite when I was little.

All in all, it was a fabulous trip. It was so so so nice to be able to spend time with Jayson, just the two of us, for an entire week. It was nice to feel the warmth of the sun, to see the blue skies, to relax, and have some fun. Well worth it.