Ciera's Wedding

Yesterday we had the opportunity to celebrate my cousin Ciera's marriage.  She got married in the Payson Temple and Jason volunteered to stay back with the kids so that I could go the sealing.  I love being in the temple!  It was a beautiful day filled with family, yummy food, and fun.  Congrats Ciera!

Californ-I-Ay: Channel Islands

We got up and going bright and early again the next morning and made our way to the boat that would take us out to Channel Islands National Park.  Unfortunately Leila got a little seasick on the way over, but it didn't slow her down too much.  Go figure that none of the rides in Disneyland made her queasy, but 20 minutes on a boat had her losing her breakfast.  Admittedly, we were sitting in the worst spot on the boat for motion AND she'd been jumping up and down with the waves which probably didn't help.

About halfway through the ride, we came across a pod of dolphins.  There were hundreds of them and it was so cool to watch!  It was a nursery pod, so only females and infants.  Way cool!

Once we got to the island, we got Jason and the girls settled into a little makeshift camp and the rest of us geared up to go on a 3 hour kayak excursion.  It was quite the adventure!  One that I was admittedly nervous about beforehand, but one that I am so glad I took advantage of!  The water was crystal clear blue, the weather was gorgeous, and kayaking was not as hard as I thought it was going to be.  We went into some cool sea caves and saw some fish, birds, and seals.

When we were done kayaking, we had a couple hours to kill relaxing before taking the boat back to the mainland.  We spent some time at the beach until Ellie remembered that she really doesn't care for sand and then I went and napped with her in the tent until it was time to go.  We also spotted a couple of these little foxes on the island.

Thankfully both girls slept the whole ride back, so no more seasick incidents.  Leila was quite perturbed when we got off the boat and kept insisting that she wanted to go back to the island.  Thanks for planning such a fun outing Taylor!  It was a great way to end a perfectly wonderful vacation!!

Californ-I-Ay: Disneyland

Our next four days (was it really only four?) were spent in the happiest place on earth: Disneyland!  We had such a blast!  Leila was a brave girl and went on every big ride she was tall enough to go on and kept asking to go on the "elevator ride" (Tower of Terror) again and again.  Ellie was an angel baby who was rarely ever fussy and would nap in her stroller with little to no effort.  

One excited little girl

Grandma introduced Ellie to Red Vines.  Needless to say, she LOVED it!

I promise Leila was having fun.  Really.

Still got a ways to go

We caught the new Paint the Night parade twice and I would totally recommend this to anyone and everyone.  It was INCREDIBLE!  Truthfully, there are so many awesome nighttime shows right now that even being there four days was barely enough to squeeze it all in.

Sometimes we had to get a little creative to keep Leila from running away while we were waiting in line.  Thanks Aunt Annie!

Jason was nice enough to take Ellie for the day on Thursday, so me and Leila got in some quality one on one time.

We walked through the castle and Leila would tell everybody that it was her castle (because she was wearing her Aurora dress that day).

We spent a lot of time visiting with characters.  Leila would get almost starstruck around the characters.  She loved seeing them from a distance but would get super shy when it was our turn.  Not even really scared.  And then as soon as we were away from them, she'd excited talk about how she saw so and so.  Silly girl.  She did better with the princesses because they could talk to her and engage her a little bit more.

I bought this almanac of animated characters to use as an autograph book.  Leila liked looking through it and seeing all of the characters.  Proved to be a great distraction while waiting in line!  Her and another little girl were both looking through it at one point, telling each other which of the movies they'd seen.

Friday was our last day in the park and we all wore these amazing shirts that my sister Jori designed.  They have a picture of the Matterhorn on them with the tagline "What's the Matterhorn?"  This was a tribute to my dad who could never resist saying this every time the attraction was mentioned, usually followed by lots of knee slapping laughter.  They certainly helped us stand out in the crowds!  We made sure to take advantage of the dedicated character meet n' greet so that we could get our whole group's picture taken.

Not sure who was more excited for this meeting, Jared or Leila

We left the park a bit early so that we could make the drive to our next hotel which was closer to our next adventure!  It was just as well that we did because Leila hadn't had a nap because we'd had to check out of our hotel and she was sound asleep for the night before our car had even left the parking lot.

Californ-I-Ay: Oceanside

Out big summer vacation is over and done with and I am beyond exhausted.  Here are the highlights from the trip!  There's a TON of pictures, so I'm breaking this up into several posts.

We spent our first weekend in Oceanside with my in-laws.  As soon as we got there, we loaded back in the car and headed to the beach!  Ellie wasn't so sure what to think of this time around (she'd grunt in frustration whenever she'd try to crawl on the sand) but Leila is a true beach girl!

Sunday, we went to church, had a BBQ and ended the day with a drive down to El Cajon to visit with Jason's brother and meet my new niece Alanna!

Before we bid adieu to them, we made a trip to Farrell's to squeeze as much fun in as possible for this visit.