Cali-forn-i-a

*Warning to Readers... Long post ahead! :)*

We're back!! ... sort of... Our bathroom was being worked on while we were gone, and it was supposed to be finished on Friday. But, Unfortunately- it is not. And probably won't be finished until Wednesday. Bleh... So we're hanging out at Jeff's parents house until then- which isn't bad- but I still would like to be home after traveling.
It was a great Vacation though! It was SOOO nice to have that coastal breeze back on my skin after a few years. It felt so good. I took 586 pictures... So I had to share SOME of them... :)

So... Here we go:

Monday: We left my sister's house and all packed into our van (me, Jeff, Dallin, my sister Kellie, her husband Garrett, and my brother Scott). Somehow - We all made it in, with all of our stuff, and still had some room to spare! Our trip down seemed like a blink, and we had a really good time.
On the way down we stopped in Calico Ghost town. When my mom was little, her and my Aunt, and Uncle played at Calico during Calico days with my mom on the guitar, Katie on the Banjo, and Ryan on the Fiddle. So my family has been going to Calico for a long time! We got our picture taken old fashion style. I wanted the smiling one... but everyone liked the serious one. 4 against 1. I lost. :)

*Background on the Kissing picture- My mom used to go to this little place behind the school house in Calico with some boyfriends. She would carve her name with theirs on the wall... Only since she had a different boyfriend every year, their names were all on different walls. :)

After Jeff had me take this picture of him in the coffin, Dallin wanted to do it too... hmm... Sort of Morbid... but cute none-the-less.

We sailed on through to California, and went right to the beach after we got settled in our hotel. The light was perfect and we got so many fun pictures.

Tuesday:
Woke up and went to the beach again. Jeff went Boogie-boarding for the first time and he loved it! He was getting really good too! Garrett and Scott caught some really good waves as well. Kellie found some fine feathered friends who wouldn't leave her alone. Dallin built a lot of sand castles with everybody and found a treasure buried in the sand. I looked for seashells and also boarded with Jeff. We had a great little picnic lunch, with a nice sunburn to go with it. :)

After the beach... and a nap... we headed out to Knotts Berry Farm. After 4:00 it's half price, and I figured that was perfect since that's pretty much all Dallin could handle anyway. There were no waits in line for rides, and it was cool weather. Perfect!

Wednesday:
We took a drive over to Long Beach and saw my grandpa Emmett who we haven't seen in 7 years! It had been WAY too long. He didn't even recognize Scott, since the last time he saw him in person he was going into 4th grade. He is the cutest man. He has his exact schedule and I just love how he talks and how he is. He just makes me happy. He showed us around his apartment complex, and then took us out to lunch at Polly's. Everybody knows him there and seems like they all just love him. How could you not? Lunch hit the spot and they had the BEST strawberries!

Then we went over to the Aquarium of the Pacific. Such a beautiful place! It's huge Aquarium right on the Long Beach Harbor area. We were there for a long time and had such a great time with Grandpa! And it was so good to see him!

We were taking these pictures from far away, and Dallin wanted to try it too... :) He's so fun!

Thursday:
We checked out of our hotel and headed out to my Grandpa and Grandma Hefley's house. My grandparents have always been really good to us, and have helped us out a lot, especially things concerning the Church. They are such good people. They also helped us out a lot before we even got there by sending us coupons to places, drawing maps, watching road construction, helping us plan... etc. They were so great! We met them at their house, and they also had my Grandpa Lou and his friend Betty there. It was so good to sit and chat with them. They also gave us CDs with a lot of family history and pictures as well. That was really nice. After we talked for quite a while, they treated us out to Red Lobster. MMmmmm! I haven't eaten there in a long time, and Jeff never had (And I don't think Garrett ever had either).

Then, we took another drive and went to the San Diego Temple! Finally! I have always wanted to go inside my favorite temple since I was 8 or 9... and I finally got to do it!

We had such a wonderful trip! It all turned out so well and Garrett, Kellie, and Scott were great travel buddies! :)
Unfortunately, the trip home wasn't so fun. We ended up breaking down about a half hour after Barstow, and had to keep stopping almost every exit from there to Vegas to dump more water and Antifreeze in. The water pump had broke, and that blew a hole in our radiator and something else... not fun... or cheap. We spent the night in Vegas at my dad's house, and spent the whole next day (6 hours) at the car repair shop waiting for them to fix it. Although, we met this awesome lady and her grandson there, had a really great conversation with her, and we able to help her out a little bit. Her oldest son was shot in a random drive-by in LA, and another son had died of Diabetes. I don't know why I didn't think to get her email or something. I hope, by some chance, that we'll run into her again. She told us that when she sees us again, we better be boasting 60 years of marriage with lots of babies. :)

We got back to Cedar, just in time to go to one day of Jeff's family reunion. They had a talent show and Dallin was all excited to sing "You got a fwen-na-me" ("You got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story) with his Woody. But they put him too far down in the program, and he got too shy. :) He was still really cute though, and put Woody up to the mike to sing.

Now we're in Cedar, and will be here until we have a toilet to go home to. Thanks for bearing with me on this post... :)