California, part 1

We gave Dad, Jon & Marah a good, solid day of Xbox playing (the 26th) before piling everyone into the Avalanche for the 7.5 hour drive to San Diego. It's generally a boring drive. There's just not much of anything between Tucson and San Diego. Jon entertained himself by playing one-player Boggle. How, you ask, is it possible to play Boggle by yourself? Only Jon knows. I, on the other hand, read three books. It's a really boring drive.

It's always good to have family members who live in great vacation spots, which is why we all love Aunt Lori so much. She was kind enough to let us all stay in her beautiful house in Newport Coast for the week we were there. It may not have furniture yet, but it's a heck of a lot nicer than our apartment in Maryland (which, ironically, has all of Lori's old furniture).

Dec. 28th--2 Year Anniversary
Since Jonny & I are such romantic, sentimental people, we spent our anniversary doing all kinds of fabulous things. With my entire family in tow.

After finally getting ready for the day, we headed to Balboa Pier, where Jon proceeded to terrify me by rocking our seat on the ferris wheel. Mind you--every seat was clearly posted with a giant sign saying DO NOT ROCK. He thinks he's so funny. He then refused to get on the carousel with me & my sisters, electing instead to steal my mom's camera and force her to ride with us.

Our next stop was the beach. Although Jon served his mission in San Bernadino, California, he has never been to the Pacific Ocean. Granted, it was December, so swimming was out, but we made him at least touch the water. In fact, we have about 5 pictures of Jon bending down to touch the water and then realizing a wave is coming and booking it back up the shore. In the meantime, my sisters and I had already rolled up our pants and were standing in a foot and a half of water. You can't come all the way to California and not enjoy the beach to the best of your abilities. Eventually Jon realized that we were having way more fun than he was and joined in. Turns out we shouldn't have bothered to roll up our pants--by the time we were done they were soaked anyway. Thank heaven Lori's neighborhood has a hot tub! We then had a romantic family dinner at the Ruby's on Huntington Pier (family tradition). Unfortunately, they didn't have the bubble columns going, which was usually what made the visit so fun (Beth LOVED those things when she was a toddler).

So we actually did get to do something really cool for our anniversary, thanks to Lori. She went and listened to some sales pitch so we could have 3 free nights at the Marriot Newport Coast Villas. This villa is BIGGER THAN OUR ENTIRE APARTMENT. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a full kitchen. Master bedroom has a king-sized bed, Whirlpool tub, and double shower. It was awesome. Happy anniversary to us!