When You Wish Upon a Star...

edit: So, I had this whole post written and about half of the pictures in place when I somehow highlighted and deleted more than half of the post! And seriously, Blogger needs to get an undo button on their post editor! So, now I have decided to just give you the narrative and then a seperate post with some highlighted pics! Safer that way! Anyway....

I think that my problem with finally getting a blog post up about our California trip is that there is SO much to tell and show that I don't know how to bring it down to a blog post that isn't ten pages long. I mean really, who wants to read ALL about our trip. You just want the highlights, right? OK, so here is my attempt at giving you the best of the best.

I want to start out with big thank yous to my Mom and Dad for their generous Christmas gifts that made it possible of us all to travel to CA together and celebrate David's accomplishments! I also want to thank David, Emma, her mum Susan, and brother Elliot for their hospitality and letting us invade their homes for the week! It was so great to spend so much time with all of you!

SATURDAY
Our first day in CA was spent getting used to the time difference and our late flight the night before. We decided to take a drive into LA and spend some time at the Griffith Observatory. It was a great and free museum with lots of exhibits! I mean really who didn't at some point in their lives want to be an astronomer! I did. I loved learning of the planets! Anna decided at this point that Saturn is her favorite one. We also took in a planetarium show while we were there. The observatory is located in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the city and is a great locations! Afterwards we took a drive down the Avenue of the Stars and found Johnny Cash's star which was pretty cool to find! That night we went out for a fabulous dinner to celebrate David's graduation the next day!

SUNDAY - GRADUATION DAY
This was the day this trip was all about! David's graduation from Loyola Law School - Los Angeles! It was a hot and sunny day but couldn't have been a more perfect. We started with a graduation mass in the morning and then the outdoor graduation ceremony was in the afternoon. Let me tell you that the feelings and emotions I experienced during that ceremony were not expected. As soon as I heard Pomp and Circumstance I teared up! Don't you? But just the feelings of how proud I was of David at that moment were immense and to see that in my parents too was pretty cool. He worked so hard to get to that moment and it all paid off for him! We finished the day with another celebration dinner at Don Jose's and an early night to bed. The sun took a lot out of us and we had a big day the next day too.

MONDAY - DISNEYLAND!
The anticipation felt in us all for our trip to Disney was building. Anna was so excited she "could hardly wait!" And we had so much fun there that it did not disappoint! What was our favorite part? Probably the smile on Anna's face that we couldn't get enough of and it was there all day long! The rides were fun, she got to see and get autographs from characters and went on her first real roller coaster! She loved it! The only bad part was the park was open with limited hours since it was before Memorial Day so it left us with a lot that we didn't get to! Guess we will have to go back for more someday! It really was a magical place! Cheesy, huh?

TUESDAY - BEACH DAY
The first three days of our trip was HOT and SUNNY! Almost too much of both! Then the day we have planned to go to the beach it all changed. Can you believe that we have 60's, clouds and rain for the rest of our trip in CA!? Craziness. I didn't mind the break from the 90's but seriously, one extreme to another! Even with all of that complaining we had a fabulous day! We still played in the waves, built sand castles and had lunch at Ruby's on Balboa Pier. It is always fun to see and play in the ocean!

WEDNESDAY - CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE
Since David and Emma are Southern California residents they could get the 2fer tickets to Disney that includes for the same price a day at California Adventure. This park is more adult orientated but also has great attractions for the kiddos. We had so much fun there too! We saw a great live action Aladdin show, Anna experienced her first 3D movie (so funny seeing her reach for the things that were coming at her) and she got scared out of her pants on this ride! I know - Parent of the Year Award for letting her go on that. Apparently, she was fine during the ride but freaked out a little bit afterwards. I say apparently because mommy was too scared to go on it so I wasn't there! Lucky daddy got the honors along with David and Emma. If you ask her now what the worst part of the whole trip was she will definitely say the Tower of Terror! But she also got to go on another fun rollar coaster and see some more great characters so that made up for it. And the only ride that all 7 of us went on was a highlight for her and all of us too! Check this one out!

THURSDAY - TIME IN BURBANK
Emma has a good friend that works for the Jay Leno and the Tonight Show and was so nice to get us VIP tickets to see the show. We were amazed actually at the number of people that get VIP tickets and felt sorry for all the people waiting in line since 8 am trying to get tickets and only a few of them probably got in. Emma and Anna hung out in the green room while Chad, David and I went to the taping. It was really neat to watch how a show like that gets put on and how different it looks in person than on the TV! Laura and Jenna Bush were on to promote their children's book and then the American Idol winner, David Cook was on. That was fun but the really cool part was afterwards when Emma's friend invited us down on stage to meet Jay and get our picture taken with him! He was so nice and playful with Anna! Got our picture taken and then was given a backstage and behind the scenes tour. Very nice! Thanks to Jaymie again for her hospitality!

Then after leaving the show and getting dinner we decided to head back to the Griffith Observatory. They open up their very large telescopes for the public to see whatever is showing in the sky that night. We weren't even going to go because it was so cloudy that night but we were glad we did! SATURN was in view that night if we could be patient enough to wait for the clouds to part. There were probably about 20 people in the room that would wait and then someone would say they could see it and we would try to get as many people to see it before it would cloud over again! In the end we did get to see it. Even Anna was able to and she was SOOO excited to see her favorite planet! And it was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen! But remember I was an astronomy geek at one point in my life! I guess a little piece of that is still there in me! Click here to see what it looked like!

FRIDAY - DESERT DAY
I am a trip planner! I love planning out what we are going to do and packing every spare minute with sightseeing, much to Chad's dislike sometimes! :) So, when I mentioned that I wanted to go to the desert it wasn't received very warmly by anyone! But I packed Chad, Anna and David in the van anyway and led them to Palm Springs, Palm Desert and finally on to Joshua Tree National Park. I have a goal of seeing all the National Parks in my lifetime so when there is an opportunity to cross one off the list I take it. We drove through Palm Springs and did a little driving tour of cool house architecture. Basically just drove through Palm Desert and had lunch before heading into Joshua Tree. We entered from the south which as it turns out is in the Colorado Desert region which does not produce Joshua Tree's but other kind of cool vegetation. Then halfway driving through you reach the Mojave Desert which is where the Joshua Tree resides. They are pretty cool looking trees, especially the really big and old ones! It was a nice park to drive through and spend some time playing around on the rocks and the overlook areas. Probably not a park that you could visit over and over but I am glad we made the trek and I think the rest of the gang was too. In fact at one point Anna told me she was having the BEST time in the desert!

The real story of our trip to the desert though was definitely the weather. The only apprehension I had when deciding to go was how hot it could be there! Boy, we didn't have to worry about that! It was very unseasonably cool with a low of 42 at one point in during our trip and it even RAINED, yes RAINED while we were there - in the desert!

SATURDAY - GOING HOME
We spent the day kind of just bumming around town. Checked out the LA Farmers Market and then planned on going to the La Brea Tar Pits but they were closing so we did some driving around and then headed back to Emma's house. Had some fun times there and then a last supper before our flight was to leave that night. Our flight was a red eye and it all worked out great. Had a few days at home before heading back to work which is always a hard transition!


Hope you enjoyed the "quick" description of the fabulous vacation we got to have this year in California. As I have mentioned before, David is traveling to NYU this next year for one more year of school and yes, one more graduation. Who knows what next year's trip will bring?