Our Trip To Not So Sunny California

On Sunday we got back from our trip to California. Even though we didn't get much sun we still had a lot of fun! I flew there last Tuesday with my mom, my sister Brooke and her husband Ethan. Ben met up with us a day later. Tuesday night we ate at Panera. So yummy! I love their sandwiches and soup! Then we did some grocery shopping then went to our hotel. The next morning we woke up and headed to Disneyland! Here are Brooke, my mom and I in front of the Disneyland entrance. Out of the many times that we have been to Disneyland we had never been during Halloween. It was fun. It was nice too since all the kids were in school and the weather wasn't the warmest it made the lines a lot shorter!

Here are Brooke and Ethan on the car ride.

Brooke wanted to go on the teacup ride. So she got my mom and I to go with her. Ethan isn't a big fan of rides that spin you. My mom went only if we didn't make it spin more. She did the bad thing on the ride to tell us we could spin it for a little bit. I think we were all pretty dizzy after.

Here is Ethan watching us and being glad he is not on the ride with us.

And of course we had to go on It's A Small World. They put Disney Characters in it. So it was a little different than the last time I went.

For Halloween Disneyland changes a couple of rides. Space Mountain had a ghost in it. And the best is the Haunted Mansion. They decorate the outside and the entire inside of the ride to be Nightmare Before Christmas. It is so cool. They leave it like that all the way through Christmas. I can't imagine how much time it takes them to decorate the inside.

And of course we had to get a picture in front of the castle. They now have the inside open for people to walk through. It was pretty much just walking through the movie. It was pretty cool to walk through.

They have the Mickey Mouse Jack-O-Lantern in front of Main Street. They also had Jack-O-Lanterns inside of the windows on Main Street it was pretty cool.

The first day we did most of the rides at both Disneyland and California Adventure. It was so nice to have short lines and be able to just walk on some of them. It was a great day and we ate lots of junk food. After we went and picked Ben up at the airport.
The second day we mainly just did the rides that we wanted to do again.
Here is Ben in front of Matterhorn.

In Frontier Land they had a bunch of pumpkins carved. These pumpkins are pretty amazing so I had to take pictures.

Thunder Mountain!

Even though it wasn't very warm we had to go on Splash Mountain! I loved the picture they took of us so I had to take a picture of it. Ben asked me if my face was fake. I thought that was pretty funny. For having gone on that ride several times I know exactly when they take the picture so it is fun to pull faces on the rides that take pictures. I think Ben's face is pretty great too.

Here we are at California Adventure.

Brooke and I wanted to go on the swings again. She convinced Ethan to come on by saying they had a tandem swing so they could go together, but those were for parents to sit with their kids on it. So they weren't able to sit on one together. I don't think he enjoyed going on it.

Near the end of the night Ben wanted to get ice cream that he kept seeing everyone eat. We both got one and ate it right before dinner which was not the best idea.

After we went and got our dinner that we had reserved to get a good spot to watch their new World of Color show. It was a great show. I can't even imagine how they put that all together. Disneyland is amazing! We had a great time at Disneyland and California Adventure. California Adventure has a lot of new things coming. They are building a Cars Land that will be open in 2012 and they will have something like the test track in Epcot we will have to go back for that. They are also finally making a Little Mermaid ride. We had lots of churros and other goodies! We also saw Chad Michael Murray with his wife in front of Tower Of Terror. Ben was the one who spotted him. He had his hat pretty low so it took me awhile to recognize him. He walked past us and I got a closer look. I use to love the show that he starred in One Tree Hill. That is the closest I have ever come to a celebrity. We watched the Pixar parade, rode all the rides that we wanted to. It was great. That is the perfect time to go to Disneyland!

The next day we drove the Pacific Coast Highway to some of the piers. We first stopped at Huntington Beach to watch some of the surfers.

Our main destination was the Santa Monica Pier. Which took us a lot longer to get there than we thought, but it was fun. We ate lunch there then my mom wanted to take us all on these bumper cars. I had never been on this kind of a bumper car. It was pretty fun. And we were the only ones on it and had a blast. The guy running it didn't have anyone else in line and when he stopped us we were all bummed it was over so he let us go again for free.

Here we are at the end of the Pier

We then walked onto the beach.

Brooke wanted to take pictures of us doing cartwheels. It had been awhile since I had done a cartwheel, but she got a good picture on her camera that I don't have.

I wrote E&B in the sand for Brooke so she wrote B2 for us.

Brooke likes to do model shots so I had to post one :)

After we headed back to our hotel. We had been in the car for a long time. Brooke started singing Gilligan's Island theme song. Since it felt like we went on a three hour tour. We hit rush hour on the way back so it made it for a longer trip. We were glad to get back. We also had bought some bread, fruit, and chips and salsa at a street market at Huntington beach. So we went to the grocery store and got stuff to make sandwiches and milkshakes and had dinner at the hotel. It was great. Then we watched a movie Brooke rented from the library called Scoop. I had never heard of it, but I loved it. It was a great day!
The next day we had plans to meet up with a girl Ben baptized, but they weren't able to get a car to come meet us. So we went to Balboa Island and Newport Beach. We took the ferry to Balboa Island. That was a pretty short ferry ride. We walked around and went in to a museum. That was pretty fun. Then we got doughnuts from a place my mom loves. They were pretty delicious. We ate at some Mexican Restaurant that was close by and they had great food. Then we sat on the beach for awhile. It was one of the nicer days. So the sun was out for awhile which was great to sit on the beach!

We also rented bikes for an hour. That was fun to ride by all the beach houses and along the beach. We rode past the beach house that we stayed at when I was younger. It was fun to see it again.

After we stopped at a couple places then headed to the hotel to watch the sunset. Ben and I went and sat in the hot tubs. After I was pretty tired so I just wanted to relax. My mom and I played a couple games of Bananagrams then Ben found Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead on tv so we watched that. Sunday we had check out at 10 so we packed up and headed out. We first stopped at Panera then headed to Downtown Disney to walk around some of their stores. Then my mom wanted to take us to Knott's Berry Farm for their famous chicken dinner. The meals are huge so we shared. It comes with soup, salad, biscuits, mashed potatoes, corn, four pieces of chicken, and a choice of dessert. The man who owned Knott's Berry Farm invented Boysenberries. So we had boysenberry punch and boysenberry sherbet. Everything was delicious! Then we walked around all of their stores. While walking through one of the stores Ben got a voice mail saying our flight was delayed. Our original flight was at 6 the new time was 7:45. So we decided to go to another beach. We decided to go to Long Beach since it was pretty close to the airport. We had never been there before and I don't think we will be back again. So we headed to the airport early. It was a great trip and was very nice to get away for a few days. We had a blast! Thanks mom for planning a great vacation!
Here is one more picture of the view from our hotel.

Sorry so long! I wanted to post it all :)

THE VIDEOS ARE FOR BENSON B, TJ, AND LOGGAN. LOOK BENSON, MADER!