A Trip to San Diego!

Well, here is the post that took us forever to get going. We will have to start before Christmas back in December.

There were some crazy snow storms in Des Moines, and that means a lot of shoveling. Laura still doesn't have any snow clothes, but we got Haley a snow suit and matching coat for $7 off Craigslist! We put a better coat on her, a hat, thermals underneath, the whole nine yards. So Haley, her Daddy, and Rufus went outside to shovel (Haley raked...) while Laura watched and took pictures from the sliding glass door. Haley could only be outside about 15 minutes, then she cried the entire time she thawed out! We don't remember the exact temperature, but it was definitely in the negatives.

They are best friends most days.

Then we got ready to travel to San Diego for Christmas!! Knowing that we couldn't take Haley's presents with us on the plane, we let her see them a few days before we left. She got a lego activity table thingy and a "bounce and spin" zebra. She really liked them both and plays with them often!

The day before we left, Laura made her first Turkey dinner ever. We decided to throw a party to celebrate Benjamin finishing the first semester of medical school. We invited the Barretts over for dinner as well, and Michelle made most of the side dishes. We even had pumpkin pie. It was so nice to get together and have a fancy meal with friends right before our Christmas break.

We got this electric knife for our wedding and always lose it when we have an opportunity to use it. This was our first time, and we were very excited!

Then we traveled to San Diego. We dropped off Rufus at a kennel, drove to Kansas City, MO and had lunch with Matt and Ali Baker. Then they took us to the airport and took our car home with them. (Thanks again for doing that! They live an hour away from the airport and drove a whole bunch just to help save us some money!) Then we got on a plane. We were a little scared of taking Haley on a plane ride, but it worked out great! They had overbooked the flight and had to rearrange things. We ended up being bumped to FIRST CLASS with all of the perks that went with it. We had enough leg room that Haley just played on the floor in front of us! Then on the second flight Haley was asleep the whole time and they gave us on extra seat next to us. Haley slept in her car seat next to us the rest of the way there. When we got off the plane, Haley instantly recognized Laura's Dad and started yelling Grandpa. Since she hadn't seen him in a long time, and is not a big fan of men, we were shocked to see how excited she was! She latched right on to him and followed him around the airport. This isn't our car, but we thought it was awesome and took the official first picture of our vacation!

While in San Diego, we walked Christmas Card Lane. If you don't know what that is, google it. You will find it! It is a bunch of streets that go crazy with Christmas displays on their houses. It is only a few streets away from Laura's parents' house and there are always tour buses and stands selling hot chocolate and caroling everywhere. The camera wasn't cooperating too much, but you can kind of get the idea...

We went shopping with Danielle's family to get ready for Christmas. Jilana, Tacey and Laura got a little bored...

Laura HAD to get a picture with this guy. She couldn't believe it so she documented it for all to see. This was a guy with a petition to legallize pot in California. Right before Laura asked for the picture, a PREGNANT lady signed it! For the record, we do not agree, but couldn't pass up an opportunity to take this picture. Laura said he smelled bad...

Changing topics (haha): We also visited the temple grounds of the San Diego LDS temple. We also talked a lot about the baby Jesus. It was a little past Haley's bedtime, but she still enjoyed most of it.

We celebrated Christmas...

Haley loves her Grandpa.

We also went to Disneyland! This was our Christmas gift to each other. It was also Haley's first time ever! All 16 people home for Christmas in Laura's house went. Dad, Mom, Danielle, Shane, Tacey, Dallin, McCade, Shannon, Andrea, Jilana, Josh, Emmalee, Scott, Benjamin, Laura and Haley. And all of us went on all of the rides we had planned, even though it was the busiest day of the year and the park sold out, implying close to 100,000 people. We also saw our cousin Cameron who works at Disneyland, ushering around a famous, blonde, High school Musical star around for the day. Of course, we could never tell you who she was.... It was tons of fun.

So much to see! Haley only slept once for about 35 minutes until well after her bedtime!

Disneyland brings out the kid in all of us.

Haley loved the teacups with Grandma and Grandpa!

And the poor kid must have missed snow (not a lot!) because she was SO HAPPY when it snowed in Disneyland. It is the most magical place on earth. It even snows at Christmastime in Southern California there!

We also had a BBQ which we had to take pictures of, just to brag... It was beautiful outside. The kids also raked up some of the leaves for Laura's dad. Only about half the leaves had changed. ...guess it just hadn't been cold enough yet!

Then there was Laura's Birthday. When Laura was in high school, she loved going to Hilltop Park, playing on the swings and watching the sunset. It was one of her most favorite places on earth. This is also where Benjamin proposed (and Laura said yes!). So every time we come to San Diego, we go back there and play and remember all of the memories. For Laura's birthday, she wanted to take Haley up there and play. We didn't wear jackets, and Haley needed a hat to keep from sun-burning. We ran around on the green grass and played on all of the awesome equipment. Jealous yet?!Then we went home and celebrated Laura's birthday. Since it was also New Year's Eve, Laura chose to have a movie night with all of the movie candy and everything. We stayed up until midnight, watched the ball drop, had sparkling cider, then we had to go to bed. Our flight took off early on New Year's day.

It was so fun, and a needed vacation. Now we are just hanging out, doing the studying and cleaning the house thing. We are looking forward to having Benjamin's parents come and visit us over Valentine's day weekend! So we will post again soon... And hopefully it won't be such a novel next time! We will leave you with two sweet pictures of Haley having a great time.