California Trip

The family decided to take a trip to California before Christmas vacation was over. The drive was slow. It seemed that everyone decided to go to California at the same time. I think our average speed ended up to be somewhere between 25 and 25 miles per hour. After a long 8 hour drive (that was expected to only last 4) we finally ended up at Muscle Beach in Santa Monica. The pier looked beautiful at night all lit up. We got our hotel room and walked across the street to the pier and ventured onto the beach to stick our feet into the ocean. Some of the kids got more than their feet wet! It was our first time at an ocean and in California. The next morning we woke up early and headed straight to the beach. Sven ran and dove straight into the cold water. Allison cried if the water touched her feet at all. It was barely comfortable at about 60 degrees. We sported the obvious tourist look, but we had a blast. At eleven we headed back to the hotel to pack up and head to Knott’s berry farm. As we drove closer to the park Adam moaned in disappointment. He thought it was an actual berry farm. He hates amusement parks! We parked and walked to the ticket booth. As we walked we noticed a short kid wearing an EF back pack with an older woman and man and couldn’t help but ask them about it. Turns out they were from Arizona (some 7 hours away) and had hosted exchange students before and had their adopted children from Muldova with them.  Sven asked them if they were LDS and it turned out that they were. She told me she had a coupon that she didn’t need but felt inspired to bring it anyway.  The coupon saved us 68 dollars on admission. The first ride we came to was a wooden rollercoaster. Anne and Sven got on but Renae was too scared but changed her mind after seeing Anne and Sven ride. Kayleigh and Adam broke themselves in riding the Merry Go round, then mom bribed Adam to ride a small steel rollercoaster. The girls immediately wanted to ride it again but Adam had enough. He eventually got to ride his favorite ride, the bumper cars, 3 or 4 times. It is his favorite ride.  We headed home at about 8 and rolled into Las Vegas at 1:30 am. The kids slept most of the way home. It had been a wonderfully long day.