California Dream'n

Last weekend was our big three day trip to California. Even though it was such a short trip, we had a great time. We left Friday morning and met up with my sister and her husband. We ate a quick dinner at the Macaroni Grill and then headed off to Wicked. It was such an amazing show. I felt really bad that Colin couldn't be there to see it with us, but we have already planned to see it in Phoenix or Salt Lake next year when it is on tour.


Here we are waiting to get in. We walked along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and didn't see a lot of stars we recognized. The Pantages theater was a great place to see Wicked. We had great seats, but really anywhere in the theater would have been fine.
Shell & Kell


Saturday we started off at Santa Monica beach. It was a little cold, but we weren't complaining!! We walked around for awhile and thought we walked into a time warp.
We passed a couple of guys carrying a boom box with the music blasting, old men playing chess and guys working out with tank tops and short shorts. I didn't know people still did that!
And of course the trip wouldn't be a success without running the trucks. Colin and Scott had a great time driving these while the girls sat in the car and talked.
After we parted from Shelly and Scott we headed down to Newport Beach. One thing that I have always wanted to do is ride bikes on the beach. It took A LOT of convincing, but finally my good husband agreed to ride with me and he ended up having fun.

While we were riding bikes Hayden got to spend some quality time with Granny Jo. My mom grew up on Newport Beach so she showed us three of the houses she was raised in. Two of them are right on the beach (lucky). She has really fond memories of California and she absolutely loves the beach so I think she was in heaven being there with Hayden.

Sunday before we left we made a stop at the Newport Beach temple. It is a really interesting temple. We almost didn't even recognize it. It is not white and it has a really interesting steeple.
I guess the city of Newport Beach had stipulations about how the temple would have to look if they wanted to build it there. They wanted the color to be earthly and fit in with the surrounding area. Also they didn't want the steeple to be too high. I was really surprised that the church went along with that, but the temple turned out really pretty and the grounds are gorgeous.!!