Domestic

This weekend I got the urge to become more domestic. I did a ton of research and decided that it was high time I make my own homemade cleaners. Not only do they save tons of money, keep many chemicals out of your home, and are easy to make, but they work better than any cleaners I've ever bought from the store! I was so impressed with how they turned out and I am never buying store bought cleaner again. I made a scouring powder, an all purpose spray, a stain remover, a tub scrub, a glass cleaner and a shower cleaner. I cleaned my entire house with all of my cleaners and it was spotless! Ahh I love a clean house.

Tyler and I also got into the art of making homemade ice cream. Ty spoiled me at Costco one day and we came home with our very own ice cream maker. Now we have not been able to stop making it! The ice cream is soo delicious! Just this weekend we made peach, strawberry, and cookies and cream. We're obsessed!

I'm so blessed that my hubs lets me go on these crazy benders of mine. I know he's constantly coming home wondering what new project I'm putting our house under now :) but that's what makes life exciting, right?

New Furniture

So I've been getting into redoing furniture lately. Here is the bookcase I bought for 6 dollars and then spent 25 dollars for paint and other items needed to finish it. Total: $31!!! I am in love with it and will have a couple more pieces of furniture redone soon.

California Day 8

This would have been the day we would be driving home but, due to our fun times, we booked another night at our hotel and planned one more day of fun :)

First off we went to Knotts Berry Farm since we got a discount on tickets. We waited in line for an hour per ride so we just did 3 rides. It was enough to give Ty his thrilling rides but we got done waiting in line for so long pretty fast!

We then raced back to our hotel so we could get more time on the beach. This was when I cut our frisbee playing in the water short because we lost our frisbee to the ocean AND my headband, sad day :(

After the beach we went and got free beach cruisers from our hotel (awesome!) and rode around the pier while the sun was setting, gorgeous! When Tyler and I went on our first tip to Newport together, he told me for the first time that he loved me on the pier at sunset. Aw I know! So cute! So here
We are again at sunset, now married. Crazy how time flies!

We finished our night off by eating at the spaghetti factory, which is a favorite of ours, and went to bed to wake up early the next day.

Driving home the next day did not involve any escapades (probably because Tyler drove all the way to cedar city) and now we are happily home, though we do miss the California sun!

All in all Great trip spent with my honey, can't wait for our next adventure!

California Day 7

After just a couple of hours at Disneyland (we were pretty Disneyland out) we headed to Newport Beach! I love this place so much for many reasons, one of which being Ty and I took our first vacation together here.

Ty was in charge of booking the hotel for this night and surprised with a very nice hotel just right off the beach. It was such a relief to stay here because we had not been staying in the most clean hotels the majority of the trip due to trying to save some money. The hotel was called the Little Inn By the Bay (or something like that...) and the rooms were each named after a beach.

 Immediately after checking in we headed to the beach, we finally had warm enough weather!! It was the perfect beach day. Ty got to skim board while I found a million sea shells that I have great plans for in our house! We also got some good frisbee playing in on the beach which is a favorite thing for us.

 We also saw tons of awesome things at the beach. We saw dolphins swimming far out in the ocean, which was so cool!
I also found like a million crab arms.... pretty gross. But I saw even more tiny baby crabs floating in the water and getting washed up on the shore. I don't know what was going on with the crabs, but the water was completely covered with the tiny baby ones that were just dead. Every time I got out of the water I would find 3 or 4 tiny baby crabs stuck to me somewhere, it was pretty gross but didn't deter me too much from getting in the water.

 And finally, just as Ty and I were leaving the beach, we saw people gathering down by the water. We decided to head over there to see what everyone was looking at, thinking it would be a sea turtle or something. Oh no! It was a shark. A baby Great White Shark!!! I couldn't believe it. And the craziest thing was that it was still alive. The lifeguard who was there making sure no one got too close said that the little shark had been beaching himself all day, probably because he was sick. He also mentioned that momma shark was probably somewhere nearby, Ah! We sat and watched that shark for a good half hour as it flailed around and chomped it's teeth and tried to get back in the water (or that's what it seemed like). It was kinda sad to watch, but when I said to the lifeguard how sad it was, he said, "It's not so sad when they are chomping on the end of your surf board." Good point.

It was probably one of the best beach days ever, we had such a blast! We ended our night by going back to our hotel and cleaning off all the baby crabs (just kidding :) ) and then heading out to get some delicious TK Burger. So yummy!

California Day 6

Tyler has never been to disneyland. Crazy, I know. So I convinced him that it is definitely worth it to go at least once in his life, even before we have kids.

Now everybody was telling us that there was no way we would be able to get through all of Disneyland in one day. That is definitely true with kids but with just us two and me being an ultimate planner, I put together everything needed to get all the rides in that we wanted to. Crazily enough we did every single ride that we wanted to and could have done more (I think going on a Thursday helped too). We did get a screaming deal for a 2 day park hopper pass that cost us less than buying a one day park hopper pass so we saved a few rides for our second day.

Overall Disneyland was a success, and it was especially fun that we got to unexpectedly meet up with Lyle, Claudia, and Christy! Christy was so stinkin' cute when she got so excited to see all the different Disney characters hanging around and she was sure to point them out to us and tell us who they were. We love our cute niece!

Here are some snap shots of the day:

The pic above is a snap shot of the Finding Nemo Submarine Ride. I loved it and thought it was so creative!

This was a picture of the Tower of Terror ride. Surprisingly I'm not screaming my head off.

 That's better :)

 This is after a water ride in California Adventure. Tyler got SOAKED and I managed to get away with a little splash on my back, yay me.

All of us waiting for the parade to start in Downtown Disney.

 The guy who took our picture :)

 Nerd moment: I LOVE Tangled. Seriously, one of the best movies ever made. Tyler regrets the day he bought that movie for me because guaranteed we watch it at the least once a month. So of course I had to snap a million pictures of her because she is the best princess. Ever. Nerd moment over.

 If Tyler were to work at Disneyland, he would be one of the Chimney Sweepers :)

 And now for the greatest moment of our entire trip at Disneyland. The World of Color show. Ty and I almost missed this show due to not getting a fast pass for it, but we thought we would try and find a spot to watch it anyways and luckily we could see the majority of the show. It was one of the most amazing productions I have ever seen. Pictures do not do it justice. Something to compare it to are the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas, but this productions puts lights and fire and pictures of Disney movies in the water.

 See, there's Sebastian singing Under the Sea! It was soooo cool and I loved it and it made waiting for an hour in our spot all worth it.

So, tips for my future self when I go back to Disneyland with my kids:

• Stay at the Super 8 down the street. Super junky, but hey, it's cheap and you don't have to pay a million dollars to park your car. You can just walk to Disneyland!
• Pack a lunch and eat a super good breakfast before you go. Meals are expensive there.
• Plan out which rides you for sure want to go on and the ones that don't really matter. You won't waste your time on the rides you don't care about too much.
• Watch the parade AND the World of Color show, they are both worth it.  
• Try and buy the Southern California resident pass if you can, it is loads cheaper than buying at the gate or online. 
• Get as many fast passes as you can

That's all I can think of for now! I love Disneyland and am glad that I got to go with my honey and that he was such a good sport even though I know the rides weren't as thrilling for him :) And thanks to Lyle and Claudia for hanging out with us and not making us feel like too much of dorks being there without kids! 

California day 5

Coronado island day!! I love this place. Best beaches, a wonderful (but expensive) place to live, and lots of
Happening things going on. I would move there in a heartbeat.

We decided that it would be fun to rent bikes so we did that first off and rode around the whole island.

We stopped at PANERA for lunch which is one of my favorite places to eat ever!! I wish we had one in Utah because I would eat there all the time. Anyways, After lunch we rode out to the Hotel de Coronado. Talk about a gorgeous hotel. But we couldn't get our hopes up, it cost $450 per night! Woo!

Tyler was having a heyday making fun of me while I was riding my bike. I get a little nervous when there are cars and people and especially poles all around me. I feel like im going to run into one of them any minute. So the majority of my riding consists of me with my head ducked all the way down to my handlebars, knees and elbows pointed outward, and the bike being wobbled and jiggled all over the place. What can I say? That's what I like to call grace :)

After we did a little more shopping and went to a small museum about the island we returned our bikes and headed to a restaurant called Dick's Last Resort. Probably the craziest restaurant I have ever been to. The servers are Sooo mean (in a funny way) and they basically are paid to throw your food at you and make fun of you. Quite entertaining, but Ty and I were not a fan of the food or the prices. Overall, good entertainment but probably wouldn't go there again. I will refrain from writing about what our waitress wrote on our special hats that are given to each guest. Not a pleasant image :)

We finished our night by heading to our hotel in Anaheim. That's right, it's Disneyland time!!

California Day 4

This day was something we were sooo excited for! We were going to snorkel with sharks! We woke up super early to make sure that we were at the beach right on time, ready to get in the water. We got to our meeting spot and waited.... and waited..... and waited. Our tour guide NEVER showed up! We called the company several times to see where they were or if we could reschedule for another time that day but nobody picked up! We were so bummed out that we couldn't go on our snorkel expedition :( Thank goodness Groupon is so good about giving you your money back, we were fully reimbursed all the money that we paid.

I guess it worked out for the better because Ty was able to get a whole day of surfing in and, since the beach was too cold for me to hang out on, I got a day of more shopping in! I'm a little sad that I didn't get to see Ty surfing, he is so good at it and impresses me every time I see him do it. But I was happy that I did happen upon a Crate and Barrel outlet store! Woot woot!

Later that night, it was time for us to go to the Padres Baseball Game! Talk about a blast! Now, Ty and I love baseball for sure, but the real reason that we even went to this game was because we wanted to try their amazing stadium food we had heard about. I know, we're nerds. I read in the Food Network Magazine that San Diego Petco Stadium has the countries best stadium food and just knew that was something we had to try on our vacation. So, we got to the game, found our seats, and immediately went to get our delicious food that did not disappoint! It was awesome! And, on top of that, the Padres won!

P.S. We found a place where you can play a game of ginormous chess or checkers. Ty challenged me to a game of checkers that I haven't played for years and years. We both barely remembered and I'm pretty sure Ty won by making up the rules, but whatever. This is the pic he snuck of me looking pretty upset that he is beating me.

California Day 3

San Diego Zoo day!!! Ty and I were super excited for this day, we had heard so many good things about the zoo. Growing up only going to Hogle Zoo has been great, but it does not even compare to what San Diego zoo has to offer. It was so cool to see all the many types of animals they have.

One of the things we loved about the zoo was all the different ways to get around the park. We started off by taking a bus tour that takes you all over and you can see about 80% of the animals. It was a good way to start so that we could get an idea of where everything was. The zoo also had a sky tram that took you from one end of the park to the other making it easy for us to hurry over to the polar bears one more time to catch one swimming! And finally the had an escalator type thing that would take you up to the hill to the top of the jungle section of the zoo.

Like I mentioned above, we were able to see a polar bear swimming! It was probably one of the coolest things I've seen in my life.

We also got to see TWO hippos swimming. Anyone who knows Hogle Zoo knows that the hippo there just sits. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them swimming, it was so cool!

We also saw a sea otter playing with a monkey. The otter kept trying to pull the monkey's tail, and the monkey would just shove it back in the water. It was quite entertaining to watch.

I officially love this zoo. It was the perfect day to go and the animals were all so active. Here's just a few more pictures of the animals we saw. Oh, and the picture of the squirrel? Tyler was really that close to it, it was not the least bit afraid of him.

After we finished looking at everything at the zoo we headed to P.F. Changs for some dinner (thanks to Jake and Haley for the gift card!). We found a sweet mall and saw The Raven at the movies. It was a nice relaxing night after a long day at the zoo.