Disneyland

We got two day passes to Disneyland so we could at least spend one day in each park. I found a site on the internet a week before that was selling tickets at a $30 discount, so that's where we bought them, but we had to pick them up the day we went to the park. I had no idea we were buying elicit Disneyland tickets! I waited in the car while Stephen went in to get them. The office we picked them up at was in the same building sandwiched between a gas station and a small restaurant. Anyway, the guy told Stephen to remember three things when we tried to use the tickets because the ticket takers ask questions just to make sure no one is reusing tickets. We were using used tickets! Haha, we had no idea and there was no way to get our money back.

We went to California Adventure on Tuesday and Disneyland on Wednesday. The whole purpose of going to Disneyland in the middle of October was to beat the heat, but both days we were in the park it was in the high 90s and Wednesday it hit 101 degrees! We had fun riding all the rides and seeking out the Disney characters, but most of the rides are for smaller children, so we probably ended up only riding 1/3 of the rides in both parks. I'd say Tower of terror and Space Mountain were my favorite rides; I rode them both twice.

 California Adventure was more like Pixar land, most of the rides were from Pixar movies like A Bugs Life and Cars.

 Me and Zac riding Tuck and Roll. He loved this ride!

 California Screamin coaster

 This is the Radiator Springs ride in the new Carsland that was the most popular ride in the entire park. It was pretty cool I have to admit.

 Tower of Terror

 Space Mountain

 Splash Mountain

This was our boat on the Grizzly Falls ride: Dad, Kaylee, me and Stephen...

 Sariah, Bekah, Mom, and Lori

 Star tours was another really fun ride with the Star Wars characters. We saw these little backpacks people were wearing all over the place and thought they were fun. This is Yoda on Stephen's back. He looks a little creepy

 Jasmine was the only princess I got my picture with. There were long lines for an hour or more to get your picture taken with the characters, but we also spotted Cruela De Vil and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty too.

 What's Disneyland without Mickey Mouse ears?

 I was looking forward to seeing all the princesses (yes, even at my age), but because the lines were so long this parade is as close as I got. At least I got to see them.

San Diego

Alright, so Stephen's family planned a week long vacation to Disneyland this last week, and I have to say that it was one of my favorite vacations. I also have to give a big THANK YOU to my in laws and Loren and Debbie for providing the rental houses for the week, thank you, thank you, thank you!!! We had so much fun that we came home so exhausted we need another vacation to relax from this vacation. I'm going to divide up our trip by days because Stephen and I were all over the place in California. First, we headed to San Diego for a Monday night football game with the Chargers and Broncos. This was fate because these two teams were playing the exact week we were there and these teams are rivals in the Washburn family.

Before the game that night we spent the day on the coast at the Cabrillo tide pools and Point Loma lighthouse. Then we headed downtown to get something to eat before we headed to the game. I have to say, I was initially excited for the game, but thought I would get bored after the first quarter because I don't watch a lot of football, but this game was one of the high lights of our trip. I had so much fun cheering for the broncos and booing the chargers. I was really surprised how many broncos fans there were at this game too. To sum it up, the score was 24-0 chargers by half time but we ended up winning the game 32-24 or something close to it; I can't remember the exact score. It was a super fun night minus being stuck in traffic for an hour just to drive 3/4 of a mile to park and then getting stuck in the parking lot for another hour after the game to go home. Shule even got into it with a lady at the game who kicked two guys out of their seats after halftime just because she wanted to even though no one was sitting in them to begin with.

 Haha, I love Stephen's face in these two pics. He was saying "Eeeeeeeeeeewe!"

 It was high tide when we got there so there weren't hardly any tide pools to see, but we found these ones with tons of crabs and sea anemones. We were really hoping to find a starfish but, again the tide was too high

We got really good at saying "beeeeeach!, anemoneeeeee!, and oceeeeeeean!" when we took our pictures, instead of saying cheese.

 Point Loma Lighthouse

  So this short clip is me being a scaredy cat to touch the sea anemones.

 There were hundreds of hermit crabs of all sizes crawling around the beach, so we picked up two smalls ones because we were afraid they would pinch us.

 San Diego

The spiral stair case of the lighthouse

Chargers vs. Broncos

Shule and a few of his kids

 The victors. Go Broncos!

At the beginning of the day we stopped at the San Diego temple because I've seen pictures of it and looks so beautiful and castle-like. We weren't able to go in because it was Monday, but one of the missionaries stopped to show us some photos of the inside of some of the rooms. The celestial room has a gorgeous atrium with a window that opens and closes to let the rain fall down and water it. How cool is that?! I wish I could've seen it for myself. 

 We each had to take a photo in front of the temple since we couldn't take one of the both of us together.

Adventures Continued...

After we made it back from Cecret Lake we headed to Riverton where they have one of the best pumpkin farms around. I was amazed at the prices and sizes of their pumpkins. I haven't carved a pumpkin for several years, so I decided we would go pick our own pumpkins and carve them for Halloween so that I had something to put on my porch for trick or treaters. Hurray for Columbus Day!!

Columbus Day Adventures

Stephen got Columbus day off on Monday which was fabulous for us to have a nice long weekend together. I still had to work, but only for a few hours in the morning, so we had all afternoon and evening to get out of the house and do something. So we headed through Big Cottonwood Canyon to the Albion Basin and hiked up to Cecret Lake. It wasn't a big hike, but man, did I really find out that I'm out of shape! The lake and mountain scenery were so beautiful; I only wish we could have been up there a few weeks ago when the falls colors were at their peaks.

 I wasn't sure if I was going to fit inside, and if I did I didn't want to get sap all over me, haha, so I'm trying really hard not the touch the tree.

 On our way to the lake we spotted this cool looking conifer. This Spruce tree has another spruce tree growing on it! You can see the roots where, over time, the main tree uprooted it and fused both trees together, and in an effort for the other tree to get light its branches looped their way around to survive. I love plants!

Funny

So Stephen and I have had a groupon for this amazing BBQ restaurant for a few months now and we only have until the 24th of October to use it. So we decided to use it the other night for dinner in West Valley. We drove out there and pulled into the parking lot in front of the restaurant and found this sign.

We were really disappointed, of course, at first but I had to laugh because when do restaurants ever run out of food?! We ended up going next door to Jimmy Johns for a sandwich instead.

Creepy!

Remember that one giant black widow I mentioned a few weeks ago that Stephen found? I came home from work last week to find another one by the garbage can outside. I texted Stephen and told him I thought our little friend followed us home from the dump, but this one was about 1/3 smaller than the first one we spotted. I did, however, get some good photos of it.

 Its long front legs look like claws!

Then we decided to spray it and try to kill it without stepping on the poor thing after I got my photos. So here is Stephen spraying it and then after it didn't work Stephen looked on the spray bottle and it said "will not kill black widows or brown recluse" Haha, just our luck, but this little guy was kinda dying anyway from something else.

Reminiscing

Last weekend I had a few old roommates from college come for a visit and make a craft. We had lots of fun eating lunch, talking, and making our ghosts and spider garland. I sure do miss those days sometimes; I had some the best roommates and good times at BYU-Idaho. I hope we can all get back together some day. Anyway, we made these cute little ghosts from cheese cloth which only took a few minutes, tops, to make. They take a few hours to dry though. I had to make a few more after they left to fill up my bookshelf.