Thursday night I flew into Orange County. It was an uneventful flight, which is just the way I like it, with the tail winds getting us in a few minutes early. It was a late flight though so by the time I got there I was pretty tired. We got dinner and dessert at The Cheesecake Factory and then headed back to the hotel.
The next morning we got up early, got ready and made our way to Disneyland. It was a beautiful day and the park looked amazing. Everything is themed with Birthday Celebration stuff that was cute and new, for us.
Pinocchio is the reason I love Disneyland. We went the summer before I started 5th grade. We were in the train station and Pinocchio was in there and he interacted with us for the longest time (They can't really do that these days. Interaction with the characters is really structured now.) I fell in love and from that day forth wanted to be a character when I grew up.
That dream never came true so now I am holding out for this job when Paul retires.
Do you guys remember me saying in January that these shoes were made for Main Street? Well here they are. I wore them for the first time in Disneyland and was so happy doing so.
Some Halloween I want to be her.
We have gone on this ride so many times we know exactly when they take the picture.
I finally found Tink this time. Emma told me right where to look and we found her.
I have a Bucket List and one of the things on it was to eat at the Blue Bayou in Disneyland. We did that on this trip! On a scale of 1-10 I rated it a 10 on atmosphere and a 4 on food. The salad and rolls were good but my crab cakes were pretty barfy. Paul got short ribs and I liked them better than my own food but he didn't love them. I am so glad that we did it though and I get to mark another thing off of my list.
This is Paul showing off his hat he bought while we were in line for the Pirates of the Caribbean. We thought it was appropriate to ride the ride after eating at the Blue Bayou.
There were more flowers that I had ever seen there. They were stunning!
We were expecting it to be crowded, and it was, but the weather made it bearable. Sorry for the crudeness but this sums it up perfectly.
We only went on four rides while we were there. We threw in the towel early and didn't wait for Fantasmic or the Fireworks. There were just too many people. They were having a cheerleading competition and band competition so there were a ton of kids everywhere.
We stayed in the park until dusk and then made our way through Downtown Disney. After that we went and got dinner at Chevy's. This has become a tradition for us. We got a few things we needed at Target and got back to our room just in time to watch the fireworks.
Saturday we got up and made our way to Newport Beach. I was introduced to a bunch of people before we got on the boat for the wedding. The wedding took place first then there was mingling while they took photos of the wedding party, buffet dinner, dancing and more time hanging out while we cruised the harbor. You couldn't ask for better weather or food. It was a beautiful, relaxing day.
We saw a seal (sorry no picture), a dude paddling down the harbor on his surf board,
sailboats,
and how the other half lives.
Here we are hanging out on the bow of the boat.
We were met with one surprise. We knew we were going to Frank's house for tacos after the wedding cruise but we didn't know there would be time to change clothes. I didn't bring anything appropriate so we hit a mall with me wearing my dress, mini-fishnets and crocs. I looked like an idiot but I couldn't take one more minute in my 4" heels. (Yes they were a mistake, but they looked good) We didn't really find anything so I went in jeans, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. Most the people had been drinking for a while by the time we got there so luckily no one passed judgement!
This is what you get when you ask someone who has been drinking for hours to take your picture.
We did get to watch a beautiful sunset from up at Frank's house.
After a long evening of tacos, live music and socializing we needed donuts.
Lots and lots of donuts.
Sunday we couldn't decide what to do. We talked about going back to Disneyland, going to Hollywood, or shopping. I saw a billboard for H&M and knew it was going to be shopping. We started on Huntington Beach. Look at these little girls playing in the sand, in all their clothes, by a garbage can! Eww. I wanted to pick them up and shower them off.
After walking around there for an hour we hit the mall and boy was I shocked. The entrance we went in put us right by Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Versace, Tiffany's, Harry Winston, you name a major designer and they had a store in this mall. I looked at Paul and said "We must be in the wrong place." Nope, the other half of the mall was normal stores and we found H&M.
I had a ton of fun shopping in there and Paul found some stuff he liked in a surf store downstairs. After lunch we made our way to the airport, turned in our rental car, went through checkout and found out our flight was delayed due to bad weather in Salt Lake. When we landed it was snowing and 32 degrees. Welcome home to Utah. Paul was still in shorts and a t-shirt and I was in sandals, jeans and a light sweater. (I changed out of my capris in the airport) We were freezing! We got back to our house close to midnight and awoke to the sounds of snowplows. Yuck! This is what I woke up to this morning folks. If you can't find me I have run away to California.
I'm warning you now that these are only the pictures from my camera. I will be adding more later from Paul's camera. I know it's a lot but I like pictures!
