Last October I was sitting at work and stressed out from midterms and life in general. One of my co-workers came over and told me that Southwest was having a huge sale on flights. I hopped online to look and as I looked for cheap flights I decided I needed a trip to California in January or February. Disneyland is one of my favorite places in the world and I felt like that was just what I needed! I thought of my best friend Cristan, who went through a messy divorce last year, and decided that we needed a girl's trip there. I immediately called her and she was on board from the get go. She had just moved away from all of her friends in Salina and asked if I would invite some of my friends so she could get to know some people up here in Salt Lake. Of course I thought that was a great idea, so I threw the idea out to a bunch of my friends, gave them a date they would need to tell me by, and then bought flights, a hotel, and rental car for those of us that could go. We were set!
We went the last weekend in January and it was seriously one of the best, most fun times of my life. I love my friends. I have some seriously amazing and fun ladies in my life. I feel like moving to this area and this house nearly four years ago was exactly what I needed.
Anywaaaaaay.... back to the trip!
We left super early on a Wednesday morning. Our flight left around 7:30 AM. There were six of us that went. Cristan, Eliza, Marcie, Cindy, Katrina, and myself. Cristan didn't know any of them, but by the end of the trip you wouldn't know that they had all just met a few days before. The flight htere was quick and easy, we grabbed our luggage, and then went to get our rental car.
Ready to hit the open road to the beach!
We went to Huntington Beach and it was a little overcast and cool. We were all starving, so we found this darling little restaurant right on Main called the Sugar Shack. They had the most amazing food. We ate outside and screamed a few times from the pigeons pecking at our feet, haha!
Eliza took this cute photo of Cris and me after breakfast.
We headed over to the beach and went to the rental shop to decide what we wanted to do. We settled on renting a surrey for an hour and I swear, I have NEVER laughed so hard in my life. We all felt sick after from laughing so much. It was SO much fun.
The sun came out a little bit into our ride. We headed back to the rental shop, rented some beach chairs, changed into our swim suits, and sat on the beach and relaxed.
Marcie and I decided to go for a run and ran four miles on the beach. It felt so great! The weather could not have been more perfect.
The rental shop was closing, so we took our beach chairs back and walked down the pier to head to Ruby's Diner for dinner.
I could not get over the sunset!! It was gorgeous!
After a delicious dinner it was dark out and we headed to our hotel for the night. We got to our room and got settled in. We headed to the hot tub and pool and sat and relaxed for awhile. So nice.
We got to bed after we all showered so we would be ready for California Adventure in the morning! Oh my goodness, we felt like little kids. We were so excited.
During this Grizzly River Run I literally jumped up to avoid getting wet. Poor Eliza got soaked!
We had lunch at Ghiradelli Square. They had some amazing Thai food, my fave!
Tigger found us, took Cristan's hand, and skipped down the street with us.
Fun fact: Cristan and I have a picture JUST like this, but 18 years ago in Florida. We were there for a dance tour. We love Tigger :)
Mickey!
We all face-timed our kids to watch the Pixar parade with us. Marcie and Katrina live across a cul de sac from one another and their kids were talking through face time to each other. It was so funny!
All of us on our phones with our kiddos. Marcie is showing her kids California Adventure.
Waiting for the parade to start! All of our kids loved watching the parade and the characters were so cute! They interacted with our kids through Facetime! They were waving to them and blowing kisses. It was darling and the kids loved it.
Minnie Ears!
Cris, Marcie, and I went and got ice cream cones at the Ghiradelli Store and somehow miscommunicated where we were going to the other three ladies. They finally found us and we had happy faces with our cones and they had sad faces because they didn't get one, haha.
Okay, this story might not make sense, but I literally peed my pants from laughing so hard, so I have to share it so I remember it. Before going on the ride below, Marcie, Cindy, and I went to get in line while the other three went to the restroom. We decided to hide behind something at the entrance and scare them when they came up to get in line. People kept walking past us and getting startled when they saw us there and looking at us all weird, so we were already giggling when we heard the three ladies coming. They were saying, "Did they seriously leave us?! I thought they were going to wait for us!" and when they walked past us we jumped out, grabbed them, and screamed, "BOO!!" and they all screamed and jumped so high! Their faces were priceless! We laughed and laughed. You probably had to be there. But it was so funny.
Perfect picture spot
Cars Land
We literally stayed until past closing time and then went shopping in Downtown Disney. We ended up at Rainforest Cafe for dinner at 11PM. None of us were very hungry, so we all shared a few things. I had never been there and it was so cute and fun. We had the best seats by the huge fish tank.
It was a fabulous first day and we didn't stop laughing all day long. It was too much fun!
We were so tired when we got back to the hotel and went straight to bed so we could get to Disneyland in the morning right when they opened.
We got up early, ate quickly, and headed to Disney. We were about to get on the shuttle to the park when Katrina realized our tickets had fallen off of her lanyard (she was holding them all together so we could easily get fast passes) so we had to go back to the parking lot and search for them. We finally found them.... in the car. Phew! Crisis averted.
It was a great second day at Disney with so many fun memories!
We decided to see if we could get reservations at The Blue Bayou and we were successful! Lunch was soooo delicious and we were stuffed for the rest of the day.
Mmmmmm, Dole floats! It was Cristan's first!
There was the most amazing, incredible, magical and nostalgic show that we watched with fireworks at the end and I literally cried from the Disney Magic. Oh my, I LOVE Disney! They are amazing! I have the best video of all of us singing along to the songs they were playing and it was just perfect.
Later that night we somehow scored special roped-off seating to the electric parade and they were the best seats. A worker chose us to come sit there and we were so grateful.
Another wonderful and magical experience. Such a fun parade.
We stayed until close and a couple hours before we left (they closed at midnight) we got hungry again. We had eaten lunch at 11:30, so we decided to eat dinner. A dinner of treats. We all got our favorite treats and shared a bite with each other. Best dinner ever.
As we walked out of the park after squeezing every last drop out of the time we had been there, we laughed all the way home. A dinner of sugar will do that to you.
The next day it was time to pack up to fly home :(
But we made the most of the time we had. We found another amazing breakfast spot and ate there. Portions were HUGE and we didn't even finish half of this. Stuffed french toast, different kinds of skillets, Hawaiian waffles, and coconut pancakes. Sooooo dang good.
We had planned on doing a quick session at one of the nearby temples, but we stopped at Target before we went to the temple and spent too much time there getting souvenirs for our kids. Whoops. We headed to the Newport Beach Temple and found out it was closed anyway! Sad. But we took a photo and realized we still had time to go see the LA temple before we headed to the airport.
Beautiful Newport Beach Temple
Traffic was a little crazy, but we made it to the LA temple, snapped a quick pic, and headed to the car rental place to turn in our car and take a shuttle to the airport.
Beautiful LA Temple
We got through check-in and security really quickly and then waited to get on our flight.
Deep conversations and new friendships.
Our flight home was fast and uneventful and when we landed at 10 PM we were all sad that our amazing, fun, fabulous girl's trip was over:
It had been so warm, relaxing, and just what I needed. It was snowing when we went outside the airport in Salt Lake. BOOOOO!!!
But it was seriously one of the best girl's trips I have ever been on and now I want to go back every time I look through our fun photos.
Thanks for being so magical, Disneyland!
