Friday morning I called in sick to work. Part of the reason was for a much needed mental health day after all the stress and craziness that has been going on the last couple weeks. The other part was because I had a chance to tag along as Mom, Dad, and the girls made a quick trip over to California. If there is one place where I can recharge my batteries, it is at the coast and I never pass up an opportunity to go! It was a VERY quick trip. We left Friday morning about 6:30 am and got back into town Sunday morning about 2am. Aunt Judi had knee surgery a few weeks ago and needed someone to help her get home and settled until another family member was able to come into town to stay with her for a while. She asked Mom to come and so we went! :)
Our first stop was Bob's Big Boy! They used to have Big Boy's in AZ and they are one of Dad's favorites. So whenever we can we stop on our way to or from Cali. They are the best burgers ever!!
When we got into town, me and the girls got dropped off at the Buena Park mall while Mom and Dad when to pick up Aunt Judi and get her home. We shopped for a couple hours (I bought some air fresheners at Bath and Body Works, and then 2 shirts and a couple Christmas presents for friends at Ross). Dad came and picked us up later and we went to check into the hotel that us girls were staying at Friday night. After we put all our stuff in the room we drove down to Huntington Beach and walked out along the pier, enjoying the ocean and watching people fish and trying to surf.
We had Panda Express for dinner then went back to the hotel room and watched "Hunger Games." **See random moment detailed below**
On Saturday we got up, checked out, and drove up to Long Beach. We had breakfast at Jack in the Box (after driving for an hour and a half trying to find out, and passing about 15 different donut shops), then went to a little shopping village called Ports 'O Call. Supposedly it was a happening little place back in the day, but it was mostly dumb when we went. Only about 4 shops were open and there really wasn't much to do. We walked around, went in the few shops that were open and then left.
We drove around for a while, discussed going to see a movie but decided there really wasn't anything out that everyone wanted to see, went to an indoor swap meet that was mostly dumb, got lunch at McDonald's, picked up a 2 liter of Coke Zero for Aunt Judi and a box of tissues for Faith (she started having a severe allergic reaction to something and was sneezing constantly all day!) then went and picked up Mom, and said Hi and Bye to Aunt Judi. Once we were all back in the car, we headed up to Manhatten Beach just for the heck of it. Mom wanted to see the ocean before we left and Dad said there were a lot of shops up there. We walked out on the pier, watched the waves and people swimming/surfing, watched people fishing off the pier, and just enjoyed the day. There was a big beach volleyball competition going on. Turns out Manhatten Beach is the place to go for beach volleyball. Who knew?
There was this cool little aquarium in the building out at the end of the pier. It was fun to go in and see the fish that they had.
While we were watching the swimmers and fishermen on the pier we could see several schools of fish down in the water. We watched for a long time. Julia and I saw a ray at one point and we're pretty sure we saw a small shark as well. It was cool!
The shops were more ritzy than touristy, but we walked around for a little bit window shopping. Everything was starting to close down though, so we didn't stay for long. Faith wanted to stop and see the Redlands temple, since it was sort of on the way home. Stopping to see temples has turned into a sort of tradition when we're on roadtrips. When we got there it was getting dark. It was cool to see the temple all lit up.
I was experimenting with the "night" setting and things went horribly wrong...
After the temple, we headed home. We stopped about an hour later and had dinner at Sizzler. They kept bringing us out toast. Funny thing is: only 2 out of the 5 of us eat bread anymore. Mom had to convince Dad that it was okay to just leave it instead of taking it home.
Very quick trip but really good!
Things I learned: What Merchant Marines are. There was a memorial wall up at Port 'O Call for Merchant Marines who have died. I wasn't sure what they were and ended up looking it up on wikipedia.
Random moment: While we were sitting in our hotel room watching "Hunger Games" there was a knock on the door. We all looked at each other then the knock came again with the call, "Housekeeping." Again, we all looked at each other because none of us had called or requested anything from housekeeping. Dad went to answer the door and this little Asian guy came walking into the room with a mini fridge on a dolly and proceeded to set it up and then left. We all looked at each other and laughed about the randomness. THEN: 15 minutes later we got ANOTHER knock on the door. This time it was a lady with ANOTHER mini fridge. "You requested a fridge?"
Uhm. No.
Not only did we not request a fridge, we were already given one.
We all laughed.
Random.
Funniest quote: Mom and Dad discussing different hotels they've stayed in in Buena Park over the years...
Dad: What about that hotel?
Mom: We've stayed in that hotel.
Dad: We have?
Mom: Yes. It was a dump.
Dad: It was?
Mom: Yes.
Dad: A dump with a capital Poo?
All of us: LOLing
