California stole our HEARTS!

Perfect california car

Goodbye Las Vegas, hello 70 degree California!  :)  We left Vegas with cash in our pockets, thanks to the bonus Ben won the night before.  We landed in San Diego and went to pick up our rental car.  The lady asks Ben "Would you like to upgrade the car for $15/day to a convertible?"  This was a no brainer, of COURSE we would, the weather is PERFECT!  So we hoped in the convertible put the top down and headed to the gorgeous Laguna Beach.  It was about an hour and a half to get to the hotel we were staying at in Laguna.... but it was a lovely drive down the costal highway!

I have to be honest when I say we totally LUCKED on when we booked our hotel.  We were SOOO tired of reading about these places to stay we finally just defeatedly book something we both liked.  We apparently found a local gem!!  I didn't get a very good picture of the front, but the Rooftop Lounge is the best part about it!

On the roof (obviously) there is a restaurant that over looks the ocean.  The Lounge has made the travel channel (as advertised on a bulletin board inside the lobby). We sat up there a couple of the nights and watched to sunset... the view is incredible from up there!

We were loving the cooler weather, but with the temp being in the mid 70's I was about to FREEZE to death!  So we went for a little stroll down the street with the ocean view to find a jacket for me.  Being a tourist area, we bought a ridiculously over priced "jacket" (sweatshirt) that was WELL worth it to keep me warm over the next few days! On our way back from buying the jacket we saw a cute little outdoor steakhouse and across the street, and had the most amazing, tender steak I have ever eaten in my life!  Too bad I can't remember the name of the place :( or I'd recommend it!

A day in Los Angeles:  The next morning we ate breakfast in the little restaurant that was in our hotel and made the drive over to LA from Laguna. We only planned on spending one day in LA, so we HAD to hit up all the typical touristy attractions that makes it so appealing to everyone.  So here was our PACKED day of exciting LA life!

Call me crazy, I am a girl who loves to shop but I had NEVER heard of Rodeo Dr.  I accidentally called it Rodeo "Street" and in that moment my husband had the realization that I had no idea where we were headed!  So... this was our first destination.

Next stop, the Hollywood sign!  You can see the hollywood sign from all over LA... it's a matter of getting close enough so you can get a picture.  As we were driving, we passed another tourist attraction, Santa Monica Blvd.  As you get closer to the sign, you see tourists standing in the streets trying to get a quick picture with the Hollywood sign in the background before getting hit by a car.  Thinking this was crazy, Ben and I were one of those couples :)  Just close enough to get a good pic.. and we were on to our next destination.

I KNEW he was a star! 

Ben and I drove over to the Hollywood walk of Fame. We walked by the Chinese Theater where they were setting up for the Final Destination 5 Premier that would happen that night.  Pretty close to the Chinese Theater is a Hard Rock Cafe so we stopped and grabbed some lunch.   We didn't realize how much the Hard Rock Cafe does for charity and orphanages. So, next time you're around a Hard Rock... go in and support them! Anyway, we walked up and down the street just seeing all the stars names and little shops on the strip.
We bought tickets to see Iris a Cirque Du Soleil show at the Kodak theater on Hollywood Blvd. The show didn't start till 9, which meant we had 4 hours to kill.

We headed to the car and drove over to Santa Monica Pier.  The view was just amazing.  Even though the beach was packed with tons of people,  I believe the view off the pier is something I could never grow tired of looking at!

I wish we would have had more time to dedicate to the beach here, but it was time to head back to catch our show.

Sheriff Lone Star in Beverly Hills 

Luckily we left  2 hours before Iris was suppose to start because it took us 1hr and 45min to drive what should have only taken 20 minutes. I do NOT see how people who live in LA do it!  We sat through a light that turned green about 5 times just because traffic wasn't moving and we couldn't go!  On the way back, we had to pass through Beverly Hills so we were still taking in the view.  The landscaping was beautiful along with every Mercedes, Lexus, BMW, Porsche... etc. We decided driving one of these cars, particularly the Porsche, was a requirement to live there.
We finally made it back to Kodak Theater (where the Academy Awards are held), and headed into the Cirque show.  If you are ever in LA, go see this show!  Words can't describe the talent these people have to put on such a great performance.  After the show was over, we made the drive back to Laguna Beach and called it a night!

The blue whale

A Day in
Laguna: After our previous day,
we decided to take it a little easier and stay close to Laguna and check out the area.  Ben found an add for dolphin and whale watching, so we decided that would be totally amazing if we had the chance to see a whale!  We went out on the boat for a 3 hour excursion, and not only did we see about 500 dolphins, we saw a Blue Whale!  All I can say is we were in awe!

To finish the day off, we went back to the Hotel to the Rooftop Lounge at dinner, drank wine, and watched the sunset. It was a little overcast, but still a wonderful site.  I have to say we had the perfect ending to an absolutely wonderful day admiring God's beautiful creation.

Last full day in Cali: It all started with our first big tripout of the country together. Early in our relationship, Ben and I began collecting art work from every place we would travel to.  It can't just be any piece, we both have to completely fall in love with it.  This can be a bit of a challenge because I am attracted to the lovey, girly, flowery things and he likes more of the abstract art.  Although I have to admit, we have found something we both agree on and love every time. We had looked at artwork over the last few days and were unable to find something we just couldn't walk away from.  There was a piece we had in mind, but we wanted to see if there was anything we liked better.  We walked across the street to a gallery and met Mark, the owner.  We had pretty much walked through the entire gallery and we had found lots of pieces we loved, but nothing in our budget.  We found one we liked, and then Mark told us he had a piece in the back that was similar but he would make a deal on it.  He brought it out, and we both were pretty excited about it.  I walked up closer to the large painting and began looking closer to take in all the detail.  At the bottom you can see the old tattered pages of music, if you look close it says "Romeo and Juliet (Love Theme)" and I knew this had to be ours!  Ben just leaned over read it and said, "Well, this is it."  :)

View from the Highway

Our poolside Private Caba

We loaded up in the car and headed to San Diego where we would be staying for the night to catch our very early flight out the next morning.  We went to the Bayside Hilton and checked in for the evening.  By this time we were both ready for some lunch and Ben had really been wanting some sushi



so we did some research on the computer to find the best sushi in San Diego.  We found a little hole in the wall place, Sushi Ota, that was delicious!  After the sushi we drove around and did a little bit of site seeing, and went back to the hotel hang out by the pool.  We noticed there for a while there was a MILLION kiddos running around at the pool.  We asked our waitress the reasoning behind the amount of kids and teenagers... we booked the hotel on the weekend the Pokemon World Championship was going on at the Hilton, seriously! Anyway- I feel asleep really early and poor Ben ate Trail Mix in the room for dinner because he didn't want to wake me up.

Sophie excited to see her daddy

~Saturday Morning~  We caught an early flight out of San Diego and made it back to Texas!  Although we were back, we still had one more night of vacation before we would go back home. Luckily Bill and Roxie Wilkins baby sat Sophie for the week and they were generous enough to drop us off and pick us up from the airport!   So, we briefly got to see our Sophie girl along with Holly, Bailey, Logan, Ron and Bonnie before we headed out to Possum Kingdom for the night.  Hope stayed at our house and watched the boys for most of the week but the boys were boarded for the weekend so we wouldn't see them till monday.

Back in Texas:

The Markham's Lakehouse--
thanks Fraser and Lindsay for having us

Every summer we have had the pleasure of spending some time out on Possum Kingdom lake with Fraser and Lindsay Hay.  It is always an extremely relaxing and fun time.  This was completely the cherry on the top of this vacation and we ended it perfectly... admiring this site....


After a wonderful evening at Possum Kingdom, and an unforgettable vacation we headed home! <3