Los Angeles Trip

Mark had been wanting to see a professional hockey game for a long time. I think his last visit to one was when he was a kid and watched the Hartford Whalers play! Specifically, Mark really wanted to see a Blackhawks game. Well, the stars aligned. He found out the Blackhawks were coming to Anaheim to play the Ducks. It was the perfect excuse to have a quick getaway weekend together to California.

During the planning process for this quick trip, there were so many possibilities to choose from. Way too many fun options in the Los Angeles area. Our flight into L.A. got in super early, so we decided we'd head over to Santa Monica Boulevard to do a session in the L.A. temple. We hadn't been back there since I received my endowments and we were married. That was almost 14 years ago so we thought it was a great opportunity to go back. We stopped for a quick breakfast at Subway before heading to the temple. It was definitely weird being back in California, but almost like home. Things just feel different outside of Utah. I guess I should say it just feels different compared to L.A.!

I'm so glad we went to the temple. I have very few memories of what went on the day I went through my first endowment session. I was nervous, overwhelmed and just so excited for the decision to receive my endowments and then be sealed for eternity to my best friend the next day. The Los Angeles temple is huge and beautiful, yet very dated. I loved every minute of being in the house of the Lord. The perfect start to a great weekend.

 

A beautiful building! I love that Mark got a shot with the American flag. 

My handsome man. I actually got him to smile! That hardly ever happens. 

 

The great thing about a southern California temple is that the grounds have blooming flowers, even in January! 

 

The Birds of Paradise were awesome!

 

We found this amazing, gnarly, old tree. As soon as I saw it I remembered seeing it on the day we were married. The photographer took us around the temple grounds, snapping pictures here and there. I remember the tree but we never got pictures near it, 14 years ago.  

 

I wonder how old this tree is? 

One memory that I will never forget on the day we were married was when my mom and I were walking up the walkway towards the temple doors and we passed two women who were probably in their mid 50s. Just before they passed us they stopped and asked if I was getting married. My huge white garment bag must have been a dead giveaway. I said yes and they turned to each other and said "they just get married too young now a days. You can't be older than 19." I had to laugh. I felt so grown up with my 21 years of life experience. I'm sure those ladies would have fallen over if they knew how much older Mark was than me. I thought of that experience as we walked into the temple 14 years later and reminded Mark of the story. We laughed. I must have looked like a baby to them. I guess I kind of was!

After an uplifting morning we headed to our hotel in Anaheim to check in and get settled. As a side note, our hotel was right across the street from Medieval Times. I would love to take the kids there some day. We decided on a late lunch/early dinner at Outback Steakhouse. It was delicious, as usual. Mark loves to eat out just as much as I do, thank goodness!

Our seats were pretty high up since we didn't want to spend our kids' inheritance to buy tickets to the hockey game (we would spend that later on the next day's activities). We lucked out in our seat section. Practically everyone around us was wearing Blackhawk paraphernalia! Mark brought one of his extra Blackhawk jerseys for me to wear (one of the benefits of Chinese black markets: cheap jerseys).

 

The singing of our National Anthem. I love that we still do this at every professional sporting event. Maybe I can get Mark to buy a cool laser box so we can have a light show on our ice rink. Wouldn't that be cool? 

 

And the game begins!

I'll spare everyone any further pictures of tiny ant-sized people playing hockey. Even though we had upper-bowl seats, it was amazing to watch the game. The atmosphere was fun, the fans were fairly tame and I'd call my first professional hockey game a total success. I think Mark wishes we could go to these kinds of games more often. Utah needs an NHL team. In fact, Utah needs a lot more professional sport's teams. Anyway...

I said that we didn't use our kids' inheritance to buy hockey tickets. We did, however, use it to entertain ourselves the day after the game. Like I said before, there were so many options for us to choose from to fill our entire Saturday. We kept going back and forth, but the number one item on our list was always DISNEYLAND! We just can't get enough. We knew our kids would hate us (but not forever). When we finally told them our plans they actually handled it pretty well.  I think
Téa's words were something along the lines of "you guys are going to have so much fun!". I know, right? Blew me away. Calista and Piper were jealous but in the end knew they would have just as much fun while Nonna was babysitting them.

We only had one day to make the most of Disneyland. Lucky for us, we are Disney veterans. We know exactly how to navigate both parks and how to maximize our time there. One thing we learned by not going with kids...you get to each ride a whole lot faster. I know it seems obvious but I think I get distracted with the kids because I'm always on the lookout for fun things for them to notice. This time, Mark and I were all about how many rides can we get in in day?

Our first stop is always Cars Land in California Adventure. You have to get past passes for Radiator Springs Racers the moment the park opens. We only took a few pictures the whole day. This had to be documented since it reminded me of Téa.

 This is Mark's 'not amused' face. I think this might have been the second time we rode Pirates of the Caribbean. We needed a little break from walking and Pirates is the best ride for that. It's dark, cool and a long ride.

I had to post our scores from Toy Story Midway Mania. It's one of my favorite rides. I totally killed Mark. Hee hee.

Such a fun day. I'd have to say Disneyland is just as fun with kids as it is without. We were at Disneyland for 14 hours and in that time we rode 22 rides. Not too shabby!