I guess I better get to writin' about the trip!

Our trip to Southern California and Arizona June 16th-24th! Bullet point style! (Forgive me for the length, remember- this is a journal for us! If you want, skip down to the bottom for the slide show!)

• Flew from Atlanta and landed at LAX in the a.m. where we met up with our friend Travis who flew from Phoenix to go to Six Flags with us.


• Spent most of the evening riding Goliath, Batman, The Riddler, Ninja, the Viper twice and eating Dipin' Dots which are my favorite. The Riddler's line was FOREVER long (and there was a teenage girl that needed more clothes on and an attitude change that drove us nuts), but the rest of them were reasonable. Except for I just remembered Batman's line... I tried to block it out of my memory. It wasn't a long line, but it takes you through the building before it takes you upstairs to where you load onto the ride. The air conditioning wasn't on and it was fairly hot, I'm claustrophobic and mister teenager behind us kept getting in our personal space with some BAD B.O.! ARG! I had a bit of a panic attack... I'm okay now. Don't worry.


• Travis stayed with us at the ghetto Days Inn and we took him back to the airport the next morning. We made a pit stop at the LA Memorial Cemetery because we saw it off the freeway and it looked really cool. Took some pictures and then Ryan and I drove about 3 or more hours to Sequoia National Park. It's closest to Bakersfield, and is the place where all the BIG BIG trees are- ya, you know which ones I'm talking about!


• Spent the night in Three Rivers, just south of the canyon there. Then the next day was Ryan's 26th Birthday! Unfortunately, I doubt it was the funnest birthday for him ever, because we drove A LOT. But we left for the coast that morning after he had a waffle breakfast at the hotel and even made a stop at the famous IN-N-OUT Burger for lunch. We made a detour to Whittier, CA to Rose Hills Memorial Park where we went to see my oldest brother Brian's grave. I haven't been there for about 15 years and thought it would be good for Ryan to be apart of that as well. From there we drove to Cardiff By The Sea, CA which is just north of San Diego. We were sort of bummed that our hotel was not in fact "by the sea"... but it was nice enough. We went to dinner and drove along the beautiful coast for Ryan's first time seeing the Pacific Ocean! It was chilly though, so we didn't swim.


• Tuesday morning we got up and ate breakfast at the Original Pancake House and then went to the beach for a couple of hours. It was really too cold to hang out for too long, the water was cold and the air was cold and it was windy. But we had fun amidst all the seaweed there. I taught Ryan how to pop the little seaweed ball things... hard to explain- but some of you might know what I'm talking about! We even got a little sunburned too.


• We also got to go to see the San Diego Temple, which is one of my favorites. We walked around there for a little while. And then later after the beach went to Old Town in San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center (coincidence that the Ensign is about that this month? Weird...). We kind of got lost, or should I say took a tour of downtown San Diego. And then ended up ordering pizza, watching a movie and just chilling out in our hotel room! It was actually quite relaxing!


• Wednesday- we headed to Phoenix... and ew, what a yucky and boring and hot drive. Yikes. I really have nothing more to say about that. We got to Delinda's house and met up with Travis again and our friend Shannon (Henry) Lista and her new husband we hadn't met yet, Diego! It was great to see her! I had freakin' yummy fish tacos at Rubio's... a beautiful, wonderful thing!


• The next morning, we woke up fairly early and stopped in Flagstaff on our way to The Grand Canyon to have lunch with Anne and Brian Wallace, some old family friends. It was so great to see them! They even offered for us to stay at their house (for free) when we came back to Flagstaff!


• After arriving in Grand Canyon Village and finding John, Clau and the kids and checking into the hotel- we headed off to see the sights! It was so much fun to be there with them, and even better because this was the first time Ryan ever met them! After hanging out at the Canyon and getting pizza, we spent the night swimming and getting ice cream together and had lots of fun laughing and joking around. (I wont mention the sleepless night we had due to someones big brother snoring...)


• After a pillow fight, taking our time getting ready and a yummy hotel breakfast in the morning- we ventured back out to the big hole in the ground. It really is such a beautiful site to see and so wondrous to me! (That rhymed!) We got pretty HOT out there, so we decided to head to Flagstaff where I grew up. John and his family weren't planning on going, but decided last minute to go. Missy (my niece) decided she wanted to ride with us. There was only one condition... that she roll down the window if she made a stinky! Every once in a while all we'd hear from the back was the window going down for a second, then back up... she was very discreet... sort of!


• We ate lunch together in Flagstaff and then parted ways so we each could explore and see things that reminded us of the good ol' days. I took Ryan first to go see our old house, my parents moved out of 9 years ago. It's changed a lot and it made me cry to realize how much I missed and loved that house. It doesn't look the same which bothers me a bit- but the memories I hold for it mean a lot to me. We drove around a lot that night; went to the San Fransisco Peaks and a brief tour of the city and then took our stuff to Anne and Brian's house (they were off camping for the weekend). We got ready and went to The Museum Club where some people that couldn't go to the High School Reunion were meeting up. I was a tad bit nervous before hand and when we got there it was really quite surreal to see all these people I grew up with all grown up, but pretty much looking (and some acting) the same! I guess I do too when it comes down to it! Anyway... it was fun. Just kind of weird!


• Saturday we decided to stick around town because quite frankly we were SICK of driving so much and went and saw some cool sites there in the Flagstaff area. We went to Sunset Crater, and then drove to the historic downtown area and walked around in my favorite stores that I used to frequent, and ate lunch at good ol' Alpine Pizza. It's good pizza and it was nice to sit out on the porch and watch people walk by. When we finished eating we walked down to Wheeler Park, across the street from where my dad used to work. We made a couple of phone calls, listened to the trains go by, and enjoyed the shade and the nice breeze there. After we were done with downtown we went to see if we could go into Lowell Observatory- but didn't feel like paying $10 just to go in the visitor center and not even look through the telescope! Lowell Observatory is where Pluto was discovered!


• After getting back to Anne's house we took a nap and then got spruced up (in jeans of course) for the Sinagua-Coconino-Flag High 10 Year Class of 97' High School Reunion! Yowza I feel like an old lady! (I attended Sinagua.) It was at a nice hotel and the best part of it all was seeing Melanie (Stow) Hagen, Hans Hony, Sara Shelton and a few other good friends from the past! We laughed and talked and caught up and ate and had fun. Ryan and I left a little early and drove down to Phoenix to stay at Delinda's again. We woke up and took our rental car to the airport (after having put over 2,000 miles on it) and then went to lunch with her before she took us back to the airport to catch our flight home! Lucky for me... I got fish tacos again at Rubio's! YUM! I wish they had those here... anyone want to open one up?

It was SUCH a fun trip! And as you can tell, JAMMED PACKED! This week has been a struggle with getting back to work and everything... we need recovery time for our vacation! As much as I love it over there in the West- I really am starting to become partial to the greenness here! And it was nice to be back home, in our house and our bed!

Here's a slide show of the trip: WARNING! It's sort of long...

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com