California Trip...again

Yes, we went to California, yet again. This time we went to visit Julia and Steve and take Becca to Disneyland! We love Disneyland and she hadn't been since she was really young, so we decided to take her with us and show her how great it is! While I was there I also managed to "work" for a day...which entailed going to lunch at Malibu beach with a school psychologist that I work with a lot over the telephone, but had never met in person. I won't bore you with a lot of details...but here were some of the higlights along with lots of pictures!

While Julia and I were in Malibu, we saw Dean Cain! For those of you too young or disinterested in TV to remember, he was Clark/Superman in the TV show Lois and Clark. My family was faithful watchers of this show when I was growing up, so we were pretty excited. He did have some paparazzi talking to him...and seemed a bit annoyed...so we didn't ask for a picture. But when he was pulling out of the parking lot, I gave him a wave and he smiled and waved back. We were pretty excited.

We also got some famous and fancy chocolate from Malibu. Supposedly they used to make truffles for Jackie Kennedy. We bought a little bit for my dad (too dark for our liking) and they ended up giving us lots of free samples (I think they could tell we were too poor to afford most things because we kept asking prices and then putting things back down because they were too expensive).

At Disneyland we won Dream Fastpasses again! Well, my mom and Julia did, but they scored some for us too. This is now the 5th time we have won either a Dream Fastpass or after hours party pass. We must have unbelievable luck when it comes to Disneyland and I definitely think we have taken more than our share of the million dreams they are giving away...but we won't complain.

The highlight of Disneyland was the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride. It was awesome! It's hard to explain, but it is is somewhat similar to the idea of Buzz Lightyear, but the carts move more, there are different shooting games along the way, and it is all in 3-D...which makes it extra cool.

Since getting our annual passes we have tried to ride all of the rides in Disneyland at least once. Even the less popular or well known rides. So, this time we got to ride the Canoes. These are only open in the summer and our passes are blocked out for much of the summer, so this is the first chance we've had to ride them. I've wondered why anyone would stand in line to paddle their own canoe...but we did it to cross it off our list.

And as always, I loved Fantasmic! We got a front row spot and finished off our Disney days with my favorite disney show.

On Friday we swam in the Ocean with the dolphins (really, we saw four real dolphins swim by really close to us). On Saturday we searched for good deals at the swap meet and ate lunch at one of our California favorites, Claim Jumper. They have the hugest most delicious desserts.

Those are the higlights. Another successful trip. And now it's back to work. Happy Independence Day on Friday!

Highlights

I've become a really boring blogger and some people have given me a hard time about my lack of blogging...so here it is...highlights from the last two months.

May

We visited Orderville for Mother's Day. We drove by the ranch for a few sad, sentimental moments. We reminisced about old times while watching #1 Northfork Road. And I drove 3 hours round trip to Hurricane where I had the best snowcone of my life! Seriously...it was amazingly good!

Happy Birthday Aaron! He got just what he wanted...MarioKart for the wii. He loves this game and we love having people over to play with us. (He shared his Sunday birthday dinner with Becca-our future sister-in-law).

Caleb and Becca got engaged! I am so excited for them and think they make a great pair! I took their engagement photos and we got some really good ones, but I don't want to spoil the invitation...so here is a more humorous one.

During Memorial Day weekend, My grandma and her friend Fred came to visit, as well as Julia and Stephen. We had a great weekend of family fun including family pics, Thanksgiving Point, the wii, good food, golfing, and Hogle Zoo.

June

We got cute new bikes that we can use on the Jordan River trail that runs through our neighborhood. They were great fun until it became too hot to actually enjoy being outside.

We had dinner with some of my old Regency roommies. These girls are the greatest! Every time we get together I am reminded of how much I love them and how lucky I was to live with such great friends for 4 years of college. Somehow Katie (living in Wisconsin) and Des (living in Washington D.C.) happened to be visiting at the same time so we managed to get together. I can't believe none of us took a picture that night...but here is an old one of us that I had on my computer.

We went to the Manti pageant with cousins. We ate good food and enjoyed the atmosphere of the temple grounds while trying to avoid mosquitos, endure the heat, and wait for the pageant. It was a great time.

Aaron bought wii fit with his stimulus check from the government. He feels pretty strongly about his patriotic duty to use this money to stimulate the economy, so he is trying to do just that. The game is pretty fun. We found out that I don't have good balance and the wii even asked me if I have a hard time walking without tripping, which Aaron thought that was pretty accurate. Aaron is working to master yoga and is becoming a pro at blocking soccer balls with his head. Isn't his mii cute?

And most recently we took a trip to California (again) to visit Julia & Stephen and re-introduce Becca to Disneyland. But more about that in a future post.

We are having a good, but hot summer. Aaron just finished teaching summer school and is busy planning his trips to St. George with student council and Ecuador with two mission buddies. I'm keeping busy with work teaching psychology and geography as well as the more boring administrative stuff I am responsible for. We enjoy evenings watching So You Think You Can Dance, reading, and playing the wii...all in front of the fan because our house is incredibly hot while we try to "Go Green, Live Rich" (our new motto adopted from Aaron's most recent book).