California Fun

So I'm a little late on this post but better late then never. Last month Joe and I had the opportunity to take our first week of paid vacation since we've been married without having to worry about anyone calling us from work. It was AMAZING! We flew out to California to see my whole family. Yes, it happened again in less then a year. The whole Martindale family was able to get together. It doesn't ever happen so we definitely try to take advantage of it. Joe and I arrived on a Tuesday night while everyone else arrived the next night. That Wednesday before everyone arrived Ryan was kind enough to let us take his car out to drive around Cali. Thank goodness Joe knows LA because he got to drive me around all of LA. I got to see a part of where he served his mission. He couldn't take me into to his main areas because he served in Compton and those bad areas. But just a piece of advice if you've never been it's not at all what you would think. I think it was cool seeing where things are filmed and all of that but for the most part LA is pretty dirty and old. That night when everyone arrived we talked about our plans to go to disneyland the next day. I know i'm a total debby downer when it comes to theme parks but i'm not a huge fan nor was I excited to go but everyone was doing it (haha). So Thursday morning we all got ready and surprisingly we were out the door by 10:45, I think. As we arrived we stepped out of the car and felt a cool breeze that made us all wish we hadn't worn shorts and short sleeve shirts but we all agreed that we would rather be cold then hot and then off we went to Disney land. As soon as we got in of course we were all hungry so we had lunch and then headed off to the rides. Us kids with no kids split from the others and went and rode some rides. We started out with Indiana Jones which I was like having an anxiety attack before we went because I didn't know what kind of ride it was. I really was so scared. It obviously turned out to be a way fun ride. When we got it we noticed people were wet coming in and we thought to ourselves, oh please don't be raining. Well sure enough it was raining and there was stop to it. It rained for the next 3 hours that we were there. I don't know mean just sprinkle. It was pretty much a down poor. I tried to have a good attitude but after 3 hours of FREEZING and raining I was no longer in a good mood. Some how we all ended up at space mountain and the boys all left to ride the ride (including my dad) and I was stuck there with the crying kids. No offense to them, I think I would have been crying to because they were seriously soaked and freezing but I had had my fun by then and was not happy to be there when I really didn't want to go in the first place. The boys had fun riding the ride and it made my dad pretty sick for the rest of the day. But we ended it with that ride. When we finally got back to the car Ryan turned to Joe and said "you know it only rained because Celeste really didn't want to come". I think he was right. I guess i'll have to try it out again when it's not raining. Well the rain pretty much lasted for most of the time that we were there. It was kind of a bumber but Joe and I still had fun just being with the family. The Saturday that we were there was my birthday. As most of you know I am like a little kid on my birthday. It is pretty much the most important day to me. I don't know why I get so excited but I do. I was more excited this year because it had been 16 years since I had been with my whole family for my birthday. My mom made me fruit pizza and we ate tacos for dinner. It was amazing! Everyone ended up leaving on Monday and Joe and I stilled had till Wednesday to party it up so that Monday we decided to go and ride bikes along side the beach. They have this side walk that goes on forever. It was really neat. We tried to rent bikes from one bike store but they were about to close so they told us of a different one. So we went there and they said all they had were the tandem bikes (two seater's). I told Joe we had to do that! I mean how often do you get to ride on a tandem bike. Well off we went. I got to see all kinds of things. It was alot of fun. On our way back we went through Venice beach and there they have all these stands of people selling things. For forever I have wanted a henna tattoo and what better time to get one then in Venice Beach. So we found one where there weren't creepy guys working it and I picked out my design and he got it done in like seriously 1 min. I loved it! I was so glad that we got to do that. The next day we shopped a bit and then hung out because by that point of the week we were exhausted from staying up late and waking up early. The last day that we were there we wanted to go to breakfast somewhere on the beach. Ryan was so nice and looked up a place for us in Malibu where we went and you literally sat on the sand by the beach and ate your breakfast. It was the best way to end our trip. We had so much fun and Ryan and Jane were troopers letting all 15 of us stay at there house and letting us drive there cars. We will never forget that trip.