Cali Baby!

Sorry. This is a long one.

On Saturday July 26th, Marcus, Branae, Travis Rushton, and I headed out for Costa Mesa, California at 7:30 in the morning. We met Marcus' Mom and the rest of his family from Virginia at the hotel, then headed out to see the beach for the first time. We headed to Newport Beach. There were SOO many people there. I couldn't figure out why they all loved it so much. They promised me that the Carlsbad beach, which is the one they usually go to, is not nearly as crowded. This was my first time ever seeing the beach and ocean. It is so cool how it looks like the Earth is flat, and how eventually you will fall off the edge. On the way back to the hotel, my Mom called me and told me the news about Kairi. That put a damper on our spirits, but we still kept a smile and tried to have fun. That night we played games in the hotel room with the teenagers.

Sunday we left at 10 in the morning to head down to Escondido. Susan has a condo down there that we all were going to stay in. We had a lot of time to kill, and it was Sunday, so we decided we would look at the Newport Beach Temple, San Diego Temple, and eat lunch at a park. The Newport Beach temple is the most unique I have ever seen. It's a seashell color, and very squatty looking. Marcus said it looked like a mosulem (A Jewish temple thingy. I probably butchered the spelling. We almost passed it, because it doesn't quite stand out like most of the other temples do. Then we headed to San Diego. They actually had people waiting outside the temple to greet people who were visiting it, because it didn't have a visitor's center. That is the prettiest temple! It looks like a castle. We walked around a little bit, and took pictures if front of it, then headed out to the park. We ate our sandwiches, but still had like an hour to kill, so we went and played on the playground toys. We had a lot of fun. Then we headed down to Escondido and met up with Mike, Chris, and Nate and get into the condos. Lucky us got to stay in the living room in the condo with Mike and Chris' families for the first two nights.

I only packed one pair of flip flops, because that's all I owned, so first thing Monday morning we went to a mall and found some shoes that would be good to walk around in. That night, we headed to the Carlsbad Beach. They were all right. There were FAR less people at this beach. This was the first time I had ever gotten into the ocean. It was crazy how one second the water would be at your hip, and the next it was so deep you couldn't touch.

Tuesday, we let Branae decide what to do. We ended up going to Sea World. It was a lot more fun than I anticipated. We watched Shamu first. We sat on the 3rd row, and the splash zone goes clear back to row 16. We were going to brave it without ponchos, but at the last second, I had Marcus run and buy us two. One for me and one for Branae. He didn't want one. He decided he did when he saw how much water was flying towards us. Mine was so big he hid behind it. After that we went to watch Cirque de... something. It was an acrobatic comedy thing. Those people were pretty amazing. *Side note* No, we did not feel the earthquake. We just walked around looking at all the animals and petting everything we could. It was a lot of fun! Marcus and I rode the Journey to Atlantis ride. We waited in line for what seemed like forever, then got on the ride, and it was over before we knew it. We definitely waited for longer than it was worth. Branae didn't wanna ride it, so we found her after that, and I think we were pretty much done. We headed back to the condo.

On Wednesday, Susan took us to La Jolla beach. If you have goggles and a snorkle, you would be able to see everthing on the bottom of the ocean. I decided to not get in this time because the water was yucky looking and there was TONS of seaweed. This night, we were sleeping in the other condo, and got a bedroom! Finally, I don't have to wake up to my brothers-in-law walking in and outta the living room. That was really awkward. We stayed up playing games with the teenagers and Nate that night.

Thursday, Marcus woke up early and went golfing with his brothers, Travis, and Grandpa. We watched them golf the hole right in our backyard, then headed to the gas light district. We got there anticipating a lot of fun little shops and stuff, but it was just expensive resturants and a few shops. We left early, and went swimming with all the nieces and nephews there. They had a fun slide, and splash pad that they liked a lot. Then we headed back and played games in the condo. We got a new game, Wits and Wagers. It's really fun if you have a lot of people! We stayed up pretty late playing different games.

Friday morning we went to the beach again. We were out pretty far in the water, and I got pelted by a wave. I dove under it, but apparently not far enough. It started spinning me around, and after that I had had enough. I went and laid down on a towel in the sun. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. I didn't think I'd get burned because I was only there for probably 30 minutes. now i have a nice towel line across my legs, showing where I had the towel, and what wasn't covered. This night we BBQ'd with all of Marcus' family that was there. It was yummy hamburgers, hotdogs, and chicken. Thanks Chris. They were good even if you put onions on them Ü After, everyone in the condo watched a movie, but I decided to finish my book that I have been reading for a long time, Bitten. I snuck into the room with Zach and Noah, and we all slept.

Saturday was really a do nothing day. We basically sat around the condo, packed, and headed back home. We got back to lovely Mesquite about 11, which is the same time my Dad was getting home from Salt Lake. We had a very good trip, and thank you very much to Susan for letting us go with you. It was a lot of fun. Can't wait to do it again.

And as soon as I figure out how to put a slideshow of pictures, on here, I'll share a few on the 250 i took Ü

* I figured it out! Cali Pictures are the next blog*