California! And an update...

  I'm finally going to blog about our California trip! We got home from California about a month ago, but life has been crazy. The past few weeks have been really busy and kind of hard. I blogged before about the surgery I had, and I have some good news to report! When we went to my check-up the Dr. told us that the tumor was benign! It was such a RELIEF to hear that I'm fine!!! The only thing that still kind of worries me is that during the operation the Dr. hit a nerve, which he said could take up to a year to heal. I'm not in near as much pain as I was a few weeks ago, but I can still feel pain when I walk. The section of my leg affected by the nerve damage is also numb, kind of a weird feeling! Even though the nerve damage was unexpected, I'm so grateful that the biopsy results came back benign! We've also been really lucky that I'm still on my parents insurance. With the ultrasound, surgery, and biopsy we racked up nearly a bill of $2,000. Luckily though, all Petey and I have to pay is $160! Thank heavens for insurance!

                  In some sad news my wonderful Grandma Saunders passed away the beginning of June. She truly was an amazing woman who taught me so many things. She was so creative, compassionate, loving, caring, spiritual, funny, inspiring, and an amazing cook! She had been declining the past few years due to her Parkinson's Disease. She was in so much pain (the week before she passed the nurse at her care center noticed her knee replacement had separated from her knee, causing excruciating pain). She was able to get morphine doses to help her manage the pain. Petey and I were able to go down and visit her before she passed away. She was truly an amazing woman and I'm so lucky I had her in my life. My family moved to Spring Lake when I was 11. We first lived with my grandparents for nearly 2 years until our house was finished being built next door. I'm extremely grateful that I was able to live with/next door to my grandparents for so many years! I've become really close to both of them since I saw them nearly everyday until I moved away to college. We know that my Grandma is in a much better place and we're grateful that we'll be able to see her again someday! I love and miss her!

June has been a crazy month for my Saunders side of the family with a baby blessing, missionary farewell, my Grandma's funeral, and a wedding. We're hoping life will slow down!

And now.....on to California!!! I usually try to explain every little detail, but I'm going to try and control myself or else this post will be forever long. WARNING: There will be a billion pictures. 

Day 1: My parents drove Petey and I to the airport where our plane left a little before noon. I've never really had a problem flying until this day. I was so freaked out on the flight. I hate the take-off feeling it makes my stomach go crazy! We hit a little turbulence on the flight and I was freaking out! The flight was under 2 hours, but that was long enough for me! Once we landed in the Long Beach Air Port (which is really ghetto), we picked up our rental car. We we're surprised at how nice our car was! We got a 2012 Chevy Sonic. After that we checked in to our hotel. W-O-W our hotel was sketchy! There were ants crawling all over the bathroom, a couple spiders, the bed was rock hard, paint had peeled off in certain spots on the wall, and it looked like there was mold in the bathroom. I was horrified at first, but the hotel was really cheap and in all honesty we weren't going to be spending much time there. Our hotel was 3 blocks from Disneyland, and that's all we cared about. After we settled in we decided to grab some Cheesecake Factory, delicious! After that we settled in for the night.

Day 2: Our first day at Disneyland!! Petey loves Disneyland just as much as I do! We went to Disneyland for our honeymoon last summer and we went again last month. I'm perfectly happy going at least twice a year :) We rode all of our favorite rides: Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tower of Terror, Screamin' California and the new updated Star Tours! We had a busy and hot day, but so much fun! We did have an *oops* moment our first day at Disney. We forgot to pack the sunscreen, so we had to buy one in the park. Big mistake!! The bottle of sunscreen cost us over $15! We won't make that mistake again :)

                                               

Best corn dogs ever!!

I got a pin from Town Hall that
said 'Just Graduated!'

Day 2: This was our second day at Disneyland! Petey and I decided to wear our Aggie Game Day shirts this day. It was fun to walk around the park hearing random people yelling "Go Aggies!". On this day we did our favorite rides again, got delicious corn dogs again, rode some of the kiddie rides (we had a 3 day hopper pass, so why not ride the kiddie rides?), but we were most excited for that night to watch The World of Color!

                           

We got Fast Passes to The World of Color so we could have a good seat. We got to our section over an hour before the show started and it was already packed! The show was absolutely amazing! The show was my favorite part of the entire trip. You can find videos of The World of Color on youtube. It was so beautiful  and made me feel like a child again (I love how Disneyland can do that!). For those of you who don't know, one of the reasons this show is so cool is because they project scenes from Disney movies into the water, so you're watching video clips on the water. So cool! LOVED IT!

Day 3: This day was our Hollywood day! We decided to go to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I've been to the one in NYC and it was so much fun to take pictures with these life-like wax figures! Although admission is a bit pricey, we had a blast!

         

After the wax museum we walked around the Hollywood Walk of Fame for a little bit. It was really not outside, and that section of town was really annoying with  people trying you to go into their store, or buy their cd, or whatever. One guy kept asking us to buy his cd and when we told him no thanks, he responded "come on, it aint drugs"...haha after that I was ready to get out of there. That night we ate at The Rain Forest Cafe and the then walked around Downtown Disney. I bought a Minnie Mouse shirt for our last day at Disney.

Day 4: This was our last day at Disneyland :( but we got to use our Magic Morning pass, which allows you to get into the park an hour before it opens. I was really excited :) The first thing we did was get pictures with the characters and take some in front of the castle! We waited literally 2 minutes for a picture with Mickey, which is a miracle. 

     
   

We went on a few rides and then I asked Petey if we could go and wait in line for the Princess Fantasy Faire. The Princess Fantasy Faire is where you can go take pictures with 3 Princesses. I know it's really lame, but I've always wanted to do it! Petey waited in line for over an hour with me to get my pictures! He's such a good boy ;)

        

We had a fun filled day of running around going on our favorite rides for the last time, doing things we've never done before at Disneyland, like going on certain rides, going inside the castle, watching the Aladdin musical, and that night we sat on the curb of Main Street USA and watched the parade. It was a great last day!! I know we will be back soon!

Day 5: This was our Sea World day! Driving to San Diego and back in one day was kind of a pain, but totally worth it! We loved going to the shows and watching the animals! 

After our day at Sea World, Petey wanted to drive down to the U.S. /Mexico border. It was kind of strange how close you can get to the fence and know that the different sides of the fence represent 2 different kinds of life. Petey served his LDS Mission in Tijuana, Mexico. We were able to get so close to Mexico that Petey was pointing out McDonald's he had ate at, and buildings he recognized. I don't have a passport or else we would've spent a day in Mexico. I know we will visit there some day! While driving we saw a ton of U.S. Border Patrol, which was also kind of eerie. We stopped on some dirt road so I could get a picture of Petey with Mexico behind him. 

Day 6: Day 6 was supposed to be our nice beach day, but that day was the coldest day of all. Even though it was cold we still wanted to go to the beach! We picked up some Subway meals and headed to Corona Del Mar Beach. It took us a little while to find it (it's the same beach we went to on our honeymoon), but eventually we did! We sat on a bench overlooking the ocean and ate our subs. It was cool this time we went, because the tide was low and we were able to climb around on some of the rocks and we couldn't get to last time. After climbing around we walked along the beach to the pier where we watched a sea lion having a ball. I started to get a really bad stomach ache after about 2 hours at the beach, so we drove back to the hotel so I could rest. That night I felt a lot better and we ended up trying a local Italian restaurant in Anaheim called Carolina's. It was DELICIOUS!!! It was reasonable pricing, and our meals came with cheese sticks and ice cream! I got a chicken alfredo calzone, and Petey got their sea food  pasta. It was so good! I was also able to talk Petey into going to the Cheesecake Factory to pick out some cheesecake for dessert later that night. Here here are some pics from the beach:

Day 7: Universal Studios was our last stop on our Californian vacation. Petey was really excited for Universal because the new Transformers ride wasn't officially open yet, but they were letting people go on it for 'test runs' so they can work out the kinks before the grand opening. Petey was hoping that we would be able to go on it...but first the studio tour! I've been to Universal Studios before and my favorite part was the studio tour, so that's what we did first. It's really cool to drive through movie sets that I recognize. The props and buildings they use for the movies look less real when you're actually looking at them in person. There are also a few bumps along the way of the tour getting too close to King Kong, Jaws, and being in an earthquake! Below are some pictures of the How the Grinch Stole Christmas set, the Psycho set, the War of the Worlds set, and a picture of the Water World show we watched.

Shrek 4-D, so fun!                      

We WERE able to go on the Transformers ride and  it was awesome!!! Not a lot of people knew you could ride it, which was nice because we were able to just walk on!! Petey was so happy we were able to go on it! After Universal Studios we headed back to our hotel. That night we went in front of Disneyland and watched the firework show! It was the perfect ending to the perfect vacation!

Once we got back to Utah (I had a few freak-outs on the plane ride back too haha), we were able to watch Tanner graduate from Payson High School!! We are all so proud of him!! Great job Tanner!

So ya...there is our trip ad an update in an nutshell!