Spur of the Moment Vacation

Last Sunday (Aug 16th) we went up to Lehi for our nieces baby blessing. Colin's parents, Tiffany, Dean and Megan were all heading out to California right after the blessing to spend the week. Jokingly Colin's Dad said me and Hayden should come along, so with a little thought and a lot encouragement from Colin I decided to actually do it. So after the blessing we ran home, packed my stuff and before we knew it Hayden and I were on the road to California.
Colin's dad grew up in Santa Maria (central coast) and still has family that lives there, so Colin grew up spending a lot of time out there. I have heard A LOT about i,t so it was nice to finally be able to experience it!! It is about a twelve hour drive, luckly we split it up in two days. Hayden wasn't the best traveler the first day, but the rest of the trip she did amaziling well.
The first day we got there we headed straight to the beach. Hayden loves the water and the sand. I think she could spend an entire day there. It is not super warm there so we didn't do any swimming, but had fun digging in the sand, lounging in our chairs and trying to spot sea life in the ocean.

Tuesday Lee and Leah were nice enough to watch the kids so me, Tiffany, Dean and Megan could go out our own. We went to a little dutch town call Salvang about 30 miles from Santa Maria. I didnt get any pictures, but it is a really cute place with really good pastries!! I guess between Santa Maria and Solvang is (or was) Michael Jacksons Neverland Ranch. You cant see it from the road, but I still thought it was kind of cool to drive past it. :)
After that we headed to Santa Barbara where we walked on down the pier and then went on a hunt for ice cream. We finally found some at Ben & Jerrys, it wasn't exactly what we were looking for, but it was good.
Wednesday we headed out to see the Hearst Castle. I really dont want to explain what it is, so if you are interested you can look it up online. But the house was amazing and fun to finally see. Hayden's favorite part was the bus ride up, she has a thing for buses so that made her day.

One of the poolsThe house and our tour guide who I really didn't get to hear because I had to keep Hayden from running around. I dont suggest taking kids there.
This is Colin's cousin's daughter Taylor. She as so cute. She loved Hayden and wanted to be her friend/babysitter/mom, unfortunately unless she was doing something really cool Hayden didn't want much to do with her.
Taylor did talk Hayden into letting her put make-up on. Here she is showing off her beautiful lip stick.

Hayden and Gavin had a lot of fun together. She is his little shadow and does and trys to say everything he does.

I am so happy I decided to go!! We had a lot of fun and cant wait to go back next year with Colin!!