I love vacation!

So, I realize that I haven't really posted in awhile. Unfortunately my life just isn't that interesting. Most days I go to work, teach my class, sit in my office, go home, exercise, read or watch TV and go to bed. Not much is blog worthy. Although occasionally I do have some funny stories about my students...like when one of them asked me the other day if I was around when Colombus came. Do I really look like I'm 516 years old? But to break up our somewhat routine life we take frequent trips to southern California to visit family, Disneyland, and the beach. I'll give the latest update on our most recent California adventure below for those that are interested.

On Wednesday we drove to California after work/school and missed out on the crazy snowstorm in Provo/Lehi (2 feet of snow!). Instead we drove through some pretty intense winds that actually blew over two semi trucks on our way. Because Courtney and Brandy both work at Marriott we got to stay right across the street from Disneyland and arrived there when it opened the next morning. We rode the usual favorites (Splash Mountain, Pirates, Thunder Mountain, etc.) and as we walked off of Winnie the Pooh (Noah's favorite) we won a pass to a special after hours party at Disneyland. We got a special badge thing to wear around for the day and then we were allowed to stay an hour later after the park officially closed. We also made our first trip to the newly remodeled Pirate's Island (complete with a Johnny Depp look-alike, see pic below).

In the afternoon we were joined by our grandparents. Grandpa loved his motor scooter thing that we rented, and both grandparents looked pretty cute in the micky/minnie ears we bought for them. I left to go to the Ellen show with my mom and sister. Unfortunately our standby tickets didn't get us all the way in this time, so we watched the show from the "riff raff" room...but we got guaranteed tickest for a future date. It was lots of fun. Then we raced back to Disneyland (as fast as you can race through LA traffic) to take advantage of our Year of Million Dreams pass. It was great running around the park, walking on rides, and seeing the park with relatively few people (3000 compared to the 50,000 expected for President's Day weekend).

On Friday we were in line at opening and successfully conquered eight rides in Fantasyland in 55 minutes. After such an efficient morning, we took an afternoon break to take a nap, and then returned to do California Adventure and the Electrical Parade. All in all it was a great Disney trip. I couldn't ask for a better Disneyland group. Aaron stays on top of the fast pass thing, Noah provides the stroller for all of us to put our stuff in and reminds us what it's like to be a kid at Disneyland and still loves us when we make him ride all of the rides he is tall enough for (which is everything except for Indiana Jones and Screamin), and everyone else is willing to wake up early and run around so that we can ride all the rides we want to.

Saturday we found some great deals at the swap meet, ate breakfast at Ruby's on the pier, shopped at H&M, rode the orange balloon, had a corn roast, and went swimming. Another great day. Sunday we enjoyed some more relaxing time at the beach house. It was nice to have some down time after the previous three days that we had packed pretty full. On Monday we made the journey home and progressively watched the temperature guage on the car get lower and lower as we got closer and closer to home.

And now it is back to work and regular life, until our next vacation...hopefully soon.