I'm Gonna Soak Up the Sun...

I've been feeling pretty down recently and it's been cloudy, cold, and snowy the past few days and really the whole last week. But today the sun was out and the temperature got up into the low 50s and I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go to Meadowlark Gardens. I don't think I've ever been there when there's so much snow and it was beautiful! I loved it.

They actually had the fountain on today.

The pond looked so cool all frozen over. This is my favorite view at the gardens.  I go to this spot every time I go.

 The snowy trail.

I loved the blue sky and clouds and the snow with no footprints.

I love Meadowlark Gardens!

I sat on this bench for awhile thinking about life and enjoying the view from the picture above. It was just what I needed, a walk around the gardens and time to soak up the sun.

Sisters!

I grew up in a family of 8 children (including myself). There are 4 girls and 4 boys. I am close to all of my siblings and try to talk to all of them on a somewhat regular basis. (Some I definitely talk to more than others, though.)

Once we bought the tickets to go out to California, I tried to convince my siblings, that live in the West, that they wanted to come and visit us while we were there. (Nate is in northern California and Heather and Tim are in Utah.) They all said they couldn't for one reason or another. But on Friday evening after our day trip to Los Angeles, we had a surprise waiting for us...


...Heather had flown in for the weekend. Lara nor I knew that she was coming and we were very excited to see her!

It was fun having all of us, sisters, together! It's hard for us all to get together because the whole living on opposites sides of the country thing and it costs a lot to fly and we all have busy schedules etc etc.

 Balboa Island Beach!

It was good having all of us together again, even if only for less than 48 hours!

Griffith's Observatory!

After the La Brea Tarpits we went to Griffith's Observatory, which is up on a hill overlooking L.A. We got there just in time to see the sunset, which was amazing! Since it had been raining earlier that day but had started to clear away, there were some awesome clouds and colors during the sunset.

I took a few pictures, but Lara and Kristina had nicer cameras so I let them take most of the pictures.

You can see the Hollywood sign from the Observatory.

Sisters!

I didn't take a ton of pictures but here's a few.

Look at those colors!

These pictures do not do it justice at all. Almost every second the colors and clouds were changing and it was hard to capture the beauty on the camera.

After watching the sunset until it was completely dark, we went inside the observatory and saw some cool exhibits about the stars and planets and the Tesla coil.

The man that was showing us the Tesla Coil (which they had a cool demonstration of) kept on saying we should be grateful for Nikola Tesla (the man the Tesla Coil was named after). Nikola Tesla made it possible for radio, x-ray, radar and basically the electrical power of the 20th century, to happen. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology.

If you want to read more about Nikola Tesla click here for the History Channel biography of him.

Griffith's Observatory was very cool! The exhibits, the sunset, the view of the city, and its free admission!

Just for me wanting to remember, after Griffith's Observatory we found a restaurant on Hollywood Blvd to eat at called Mother Dough. It was delicious! A little pricey but really good!

La Brea Tarpits!

I usually visit Kristina and her family about once a year. Normally when I go, my only requests while I'm there are to go to the beach a couple of times and to go on a long walk everyday. Other than that I just hang out with Kristina, Tom, Andrew and Madeline and go wherever they were already planning on going.

This trip was different though. Since Lara and her kiddos don't get to California nearly as often, Lara wanted to take advantage of being in the area and do as much as they could while there. Since I was there at the same time as they were, I did all of the things that they did.

Out of all of the times I've been to Kristina's house, I've never been to Los Angeles, but this trip I finally got to go to LA and it was interesting!

Our first stop in L.A. were the La Brea Tarpits. It was pretty cool! It was a little underwhelming. I think I was expecting more active, oozing asphalt coming out of the ground, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Basically, animals got caught in the asphalt and were never able to escape. They would eventually die but the asphalt would preserve their fossils. They have found some fossils dating back to 20,000 years ago.

There was a sign on the property telling of a modern day story of an animal getting caught in the asphalt. One day in the early 1900s (before there were fences or so many buildings around the area), some elephants escaped from a nearby circus or zoo and one of the elephants got stuck in the asphalt. When the circus or zoo keepers found the elephant, they were afraid they were not going to be able to get it out because it was so stuck. But thankfully (and I don't remember exactly how) but they were able to save the elephant from dying in the asphalt.

Some of the kinds of fossils they've found in the asphalt.

They have excavations going on continuously looking for new fossils.

There's an active oozing asphalt spot in the water.

It just looked like it needed to be hugged. 

It started raining while we were there, so our time was cut a little short. Although the tarpits (or asphalt pits as they technically should be called) were a little underwhelming to me, it was still interesting!

Stay tuned for more posts about my trip...

Disney California Adventure!

The day after we went to Disneyland we went to Disney California Adventure Park which is right next door to Disneyland. We probably would not have gone to California Adventure too, but since Kristina is a resident of southern California, she got us really discounted tickets for a 2 day, 1 park-a-day pass. I really liked California Adventure! I'm glad we got to go there too.

They had bigger rides than Disneyland. The park was more themed and they had awesome almost Broadway like shows. 

Look at the perspective in that background. It looks like you could keep on walking.

The first thing we did when we got there was go to the Frozen sing-along, which was really fun!

Look at the snack names while waiting in line for the Monsters Inc ride. :)

I loved Carsland in the park. They had a whole section of the park that looked like Radiator Springs from the movie Cars and it was awesome! Not to mention the rides in it were really fun!

Ellie and I in Radiator Springs!

They had Flo's Cafe from the movie. 

They had the bluffs and the firehouse. It seriously looked like Radiator Springs and it was fun! They even had a racetrack ride which was awesome!

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree was fun!

There's the fire engine from Cars. As you can tell from all the pictures I really liked Carsland! :)

Me, Cami, Ellie, Lara, Adam, and Emma at a Kodak picture spot. The roller coaster in the background of this picture was so fun!

We saw a shortened production of Aladdin on stage and it was awesome! The singing and dancing were so good! And the way they portrayed flying on the magic carpet was pretty magical.

Waiting for the Toy Story Midway Mania, which was an awesome 4-D ride where you try to hit at as many things as possible on the screens and of course you want to beat the score of the person sitting next to you!

We decided to end our day at Disney California Adventure with a trip to the Ghiradelli shop in the park and get a treat. My ice cream was delicious!

I just wanted to write down the rides we went on so that I would remember. We went on some of these multiple times and I might have missed some.

Frozen Sing-a-long
Monsters Inc, Mike and Sully to the Rescue
Disney's Aladdin- A Musical Spectacular
Mater's Junkyard Jamboree
Radiator Spring Racers
Bakery Tour
The Little Mermaid- Ariel's Undersea Adventure
Goofy's Sky School
Golden Zephyr
Jumpin' Jellyfish
Silly Symphony Swings
Mickey's Fun Wheel
California Screamin'
King Triton's Carousel
Toy Story Midway Mania

Disneyland!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was in California for vacation. I am back home in Virginia now, but we were there for 8 or so days and it was awesome! My sister, Kristina, lives in southern California with her family and she found an awesome deal on flights to Las Vegas, which is about a 4-hour drive from her house. My other sister, Lara, (who lives in Virginia too) and I booked tickets to go out there at the same time. Lara booked tickets for her and four of her children and we had a fun time in California!

As we were planning what to do while we were in California, Disneyland came up on the list of things to do. I had not been to a Disney park since I was 10 years old. I have fun memories from going there when I was younger, but I must admit I was a little worried about going back as an adult. I hoped that it would be as fun as I remember. 

It definitely did not disappoint! Our first ride was the Astro Orbiter. It was pretty tame, but it was a good way to start off our Disney experience. :) My nephew and niece are in the plane behind me.

Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage was awesome! We got into a submarine and it took us on a journey through finding Nemo.

Inside the submarine.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I remember loving this ride when I was 10 and it was as fun as I remember! Since the lines were so short we went on this ride twice and I loved it both times! 

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.  This was a fun 4-D ride, where we got to shoot at things with our laser guns!

Adam, me, Lara, Cami, and Ellie. All of us who went to Disneyland minus Emma. She didn't quite make it into the picture.

We got Dole whips while we were there, which are dairy free pineapple ice cream. It was delicious!

The Disney parade was really fun! The characters from different Disney shows sang and danced as they marched down the road. It was pretty magical! 

Mary Poppins and Bert in the parade.

As I mentioned earlier I was a little nervous about going back to Disneyland as an adult after not having been there since I was a child, but I am so glad we went! I definitely want to go to a Disney park again soon and not wait another 20 years before I go again. Disneyland was awesome!

A list of the rides we rode, although I'm sure I forgot some of them, I just wanted to write them down to remember. 

Astro Orbiter
Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Autopia
Mad Tea Party
Space Mountain
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Peter Pan's Flight
Pinocchio's Daring Journey
King Arthur Carousel
Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer Island
Pirates of the Caribbean
Indiana Jones Adventure

Stay tuned for more posts about my trip...