hi everyone!
i've been back from my perfectly fun vacation for a week now, but i don't have any pictures because i threw my camera away at
disneyland. . . .
i've been hoping that they'd find it and send it to me, but i haven't seen it yet. so
i'll just have to post without pictures!
day 1: leaving salt lake and arriving in long beach. i had no idea that the long beach airport was that small! it was so cute and miniature! sure was easy to find our bags. we hopped into a shuttle that took us to our hotel in downtown long beach and then we started walking. we walked and walked and walked and walked. the girl at the hotel told us it wouldn't take so long to get to the beach, but it did. it was a LONG walk. plus we went down the wrong street. . . . we finally made it to shoreline village and then took a bus over to the Queen Mary. it was pretty cool, but they have ghost stories posted everywhere and i got a little
creeped out. . . . not somewhere i would want to stay. apparently the pool is where the most sightings take place. i would NOT go swimming there.
hmm. anyway, then we had dinner at outback and watched a carnival cruise ship leave and then we got a shuttle back to the hotel. we weren't going to walk again! the hotel had a very nice pool so we relaxed our tired feet.
day 2: leaving on the cruise!!!!! in the morning we spent some time at the little shopping center in long beach. there was a book store where every book was $1. that was fun. then it was time to eat lunch and head to our ship! it was a lot of fun exploring and while the ship was still in the harbor, we didn't have any seasickness. unfortunately, as soon as we left, we started to feel the rocking. . . .
melissa and
anna had a hard time with that. they got pretty sick. i don't think they'll be cruising again. . . .
day 3:
catalina island was beautiful! we took a tender over to the island and then hopped on the glass bottom boat. there were SO many fish! and the seaweed was miles long. it was really cool. after that,
nannie and i went on a bus tour while
melissa and
anna decided they'd had enough moving around. it was fun to see the whole city and learn a little more about it. it's so pretty. we wandered along the main street and had lunch and did some shopping. way fun.
day 4:
ensenada,
mexico. i loved
ensenada! we took a bus tour over to "la
bufadora" or the blowhole. to get there, you have to walk through the
mexican market and everyone is trying to get the
americans to come into their store. some people hated it, but it kind of reminded me of being on my mission in
brazil so i was okay with it. la
bufadora was beautiful! the water goes up about 60 feet or more. it's really cool. it was very clean, too. we ate lunch at the
habana banana restaurant there and then spent a few minutes shopping in the market before we headed back to town. our tour guide,
alejandro, made the ride back lots of fun.
nannie fell in love with him and only talked about him for the next 4 days. too bad she was born 20 years too early. . . .
day 5: day at sea. it was very very rocky that day. maybe wavy is a better word. we ALL felt a little seasick that day. fortunately we found a safe spot on the very top deck, sitting in chairs out in the wind and the sun, reading our books. loved that! it was so relaxing. we enjoyed the breeze and it really helped us feel better. but it was still too rough to play mini golf. . . . we tried.
day 6: first day at
disneyland! once we were able to debark,
melissa and
anna were off to spend the day in long beach before heading home, and
nannie and i were off to
disneyland!!!! we found a shuttle that took us straight to our beautiful hotel and were inside
california before 10:00. i was really surprised that we made it there so early! it was SO much fun. i loved it! really, the only problem of the whole trip was throwing my camera away outside of the finding
nemo submarine ride (my least favorite ride). we played hard all day and barely stayed awake for the fireworks at 9:30, which really were awesome. everything was decked out for
halloween and it was so cute! even
minnie was wearing her witch costume. way cute.
day 7: second day at
disneyland! LOVED the tower of terror. i didn't think
i'd ever want to ride it, but it was by far my favorite ride! i loved it!!!!! laughed the whole time! we were so worn out by the end of the day. we'd done SO much walking. my feet hurt until this past
thursday. that's a lot of days of sore feet! anyway, it was perfect and i loved it!
day 8: long beach to salt lake. it was sad for the vacation to be over. i think
i'm still in shock that it's over because
i'd been looking forward to it for so long. it really was perfect. we left a lot of details (like transportation) unplanned, but everything went perfectly. i don't know if the others had as much fun as i did, but it really was a perfect vacation. everything went so well. i had so much fun! i had a really hard time being back. but
i'm doing okay now :) sometimes blogging is therapy! :)
now getting ready to plan next year's vacation!
