Living Life to the Fullest in Southern California, Part 2

Thanks for joining me yet again on a short tour of Southern California! View part one of Day 1 and 2 if you missed it!

Day 3

Ahhhh, Beach Day. Amie and Joyce would get together once a week, before Joyce moved, to go to the beach. A different beach each week as well, a sort of tour of So Cal beaches, in a way. But this time I got to join them! A day designated just to relax with little to no schedule to follow? Sounds perfect! Of course, I still managed to make a schedule. I just can’t help myself! We started the day (after Coffee Bean, my favorite) by heading down to the Rainbow Sandals outlet store in San Clemente. Can you believe I have never had a pair of Rainbows before? It’s like I haven’t lived here my whole life or something!

After we made our purchases we drove north along the coast headed to Laguna Beach. Andy once took me to the beach below the Montage and I have gone back there for every beach trip since as it is a relatively peaceful beach, not too many kiddos and not too many people in general.

After the ocean wading, sandwich consuming, and tanning was complete we drove back over the Ortega’s to have dinner with my parents. By Joyce’s request, my mom was making us her legendary veggie packed salads and my dad was making his famous mac-n-cheese (Velveeta with ground beef).

Day 4

A trip to California, especially southern, is not complete without Disneyland. But alas, we were unable to get tickets (our annual passes were blocked out) so we instead took our time wandering around Downtown Disney, taking photos, and perusing the shops. The new gates of California Adventure just opened as well so we walked down to see those, I am so excited for the new entrance to the park!

Dinner was at Jerry’s Dogs (no photos taken, but you MUST go there as well, so delicious!) and then we made our way to the Angels versus Rangers game. We got our tickets that very morning for $10! They were definitely nosebleeds but for the day of, we were pretty excited. We got our tickets through 714 TICKETS and just picked them up on the way there. Pretty simple and cheap, will definitely use them again. They let us know also that if we call them rather than book through the site that we did, we would have saved almost $20 from the various fees. Good to know!

Day 5

Oh no. The last day. Of course you’d think we would conclude this crazy adventure with another jam packed day, but no, today was pajama/chick-flick-day. And eat-leftovers-and-pazookies-for-lunch-day. We did manage to go to Wahoo Tacos on our way to the airport though! I had to wear my new shirt that day (Amie and I got matching shirts, she wore hers to the Angel game)! It is a New York shirt. An UPSTATE New York shirt. Each trip I’ve taken to visit Joyce, people assume I will be going to Manhattan but in fact, New York is much more than New York City. Joyce lives in the country of upstate New York, just south of Syracuse. A small town with so many mom and pop shops and where there’s fields of corn and just fields of open space. And trees. I love it there… anyway this post is about California! But I do love my new shirt! Whew, long sidenote. As Joyce was leaving, literally, she recreated her arrival just so I’d have a photo of her “coming down” the escalator. Thanks Joyce for always being willing to pose for a photo or “two.” We miss you already!