Funnest Day in Cali

We started out our Tuesday with a good ol fashioned McD's breakfast. We had big plans today! 

We headed over to Balboa Island and explored for a while. We found the place we were going to go on on a segway tour. We walked through the peninsula neighborhood and decided it was definently a different way of life to live right off the ocean. I loved looking at all the unique home designs and what they could do with tiny little homes. Our tour guide later told us the costs of the beach homes and they were upwards of $400,000!

We found some soccer fields right on the beach. I was very jealous!! I messaged them to Cameron and asked if our next team building could be here!

We walked the pier and had a balboa island popular treat...a frozen banana. It was nothing amazing...but a good cool treat for a hot day. 

Here we go on the segways! I was super nervous about being able to balance one, but it was way easier than I thought. I highly suggest doing this tour. It was so fun!!!!

And our tour guide was super informative and wanted to stop and take pictures along the way and show us all the cool things in town. 

We even rode them out on the pier and took pics over the ocean. 

One of our stops was the pirate house. Some guy just lives there and loves pirates. So he covered his house in these life size pirates. It was neat! 

After the tour, our legs were tired! Even though its easy, standing in one spot for a few hours and using your feet to balance gets tiring! We found an authentic pizza shop and got a pizza and fries. It was yummy. 

Before our trip, we learned that our nephew, Koen, was going to be playing a hokey game in Anaheim. so we went to the game where the Mighty Ducks movie was filmed! It was fun to see him play. His team is really good and he's grown a ton! 

I was grateful Cami thought of me and brought me a blanket! I forgot how chilly it gets in the rink! It was so fun to see Cami and catch up!

After that, I changed in the car to head to our anniversary dinner at Midevil dinner at Midevil Times! It is an experience for sure! We really enjoyed it!

Walking into the castle

We upgraded to VIP so we had a closer seat. We got a crown and a colored flag to wave for the knight of our color. 

Dinner was served immediately! But, no silverware was given so we were told to pick it apart with our fingers! Odd, but fun. The food was good too!

The horses and talent were amazing! It was fun to watch the games that they did.

They showed off their animals one by one. Each horse had a different trot or trick it could do. I caught this one mid jump and it seriously was as magical as it looks! This horse can really fly!

I couldn't believe they really were jousting!  It took me a few times to realize it was scripted and probably had jousting sticks that fell apart or something....but still it was very real looking and fun. Its crazy to believe this is a sport. It's brutal. They also sword fought and used all sorts of midevil weapons. 

 Overall, it was a GREAT experience! We had a huge, fun filled day and we were ready for bed!!! It'll be hard to top this anniversary!

Let the Anniversary celebration begin!

Chad arrived at Disneyland on Sunday morning and we had a good friend hook us up with a free ticket, or so we thought....!!  We realized the guy who got it for us didn't schedule us a day and so the park was full and they wouldn't accept his ticket! Luckily, Jennie had some how ended up with a few extra tickets and she ran one over to him. I was so thankful! I greeted hit in front of a churro stand and we immediately started the trip off right with a churro and wearing our 15 years shirt!!

I was super happy to see him. Although I was enjoying myself for the most part, I was getting tired of the teenage boy company that was tagging along with us. It was so nice to break free and just go with Chad! We decided to maximize our time by buying the fast pass that they have now and did the single rider line. It helped, but it was still pretty crazy!

 Even though we aren't huge fans, Star Wars land is quite a sight to see! so we headed there to check it out. It's so amazing what they can do. We rode a few rides while there too. 

We finally got on the Incredi-coaster, the one Chad really wanted to ride and the ride stopped for about 5 min...so here we are just sitting there, wondering if we were safe! 

Then we got to Cars land and rode my favorite ride and it also stalled for about 10 min! But I was so glad they didn't make us evacuate and we still got to ride the ride!

We both don't love being around a ton of people, waiting in lines and crowds or waiting forever for food. I don't think most people like that, but we are less willing to endure it I guess. By about 6 we were both ready to go and so we headed out of the park and got some Mexican food and checked into our room. Bye Disney!

We were exhausted so off to bed we went....after we got some cheesecake to go! 

The next morning we said goodbyes to the cheerleaders while they packed up to go home. We had big plans to beach hop! The sun came out and we really enjoyed this Mexican food at a cute little cantina. The weather up until this day had been kinda chilly!

Here's our cute little 4-runner that we scooted around in. I liked it!

We hit Huntington Beach and walked the pier. We saw that Ruby's Diner had closed but we watched some people fishing and watched the surfers. We then went on to Crystal Cove Beach. We had heard the tide pools were fun to explore...I had no idea what we would find. 

There's just a bunch of rocky beach that is under water when the tide is in and then when it goes out all sorts of little creatures and treasures are left behind in the rock crevices. We saw several little sand creatures, a mini crab, and these weird gooey donut looking things. I stepped on 2 and they squirted me in the face! EW!

These cool purple mollusks grouped on the rock were cool to look at. They were stuck on hard!

CRYSTAL COVE TIDE POOLS

I always need more beach time. Its amazing how comforting the ebb and flow of the waves are. 

I really like this guy... and I've concluded there is not a better place to spend your anniversary than the beach.

Even though you aren't supposed to collect treasures, I found these that I liked. There was no way I was leaving this corkscrew shell thing. It was too cool. 

We got enough sun and sand and had some time to kill. We saw a mall so we thought, lets go waste some time. WELL....it was the most expensive mall I've ever been in! There were stores like Tiffany & co, Versace, Gucci and every other way expensive brand! Security guards were posted in each store and the stores were mostly empty. How do places like this stay open?! Anyway, we found a corner of the mall with a few normal stores that we checked out. Then headed to our Air BnB.

I went in to use the bathroom and realized I had walked all around that fancy mall with my zipper undone! Not only did the flip flops and sandy legs make us feel out of place, but I had my zipper down!!! I can only imagine what people there thought of us! Haha! We took it easy and got our food to go and just relaxed at our little apartment. 

Good times! I'm so glad we have a few more days of vacay!!