California

God is good. All the time. We have been saving up our points from our credit card for a LONG time. We kept thinking about turning them in for gift cards, or gifts, or any random thing. For some reason, we kept holding off. And we're so glad we did. One of our former Impact students, and a former employee of Mike, invited us out to California to see him get married. Because we held off for so long, our flight and rental car were paid for! We were so thrilled!

 

It was such a great little vacation, with the bonus of seeing a beautiful wedding. We flew in to LA on Thursday afternoon, stopped for lunch at Inn n Out Burger, which we had heard tons about (Personally I think it's a little overrated!), then headed four hours up the coast to San Luis Obispo. We rented a deluxe cabin at a KOA campground. It was such a cute little cabin and such an awesome price. The guy who owns the campground knows Mark so we got a really sweet deal.

 

During the flight, we happened to fly over the Grand Canyon, and we had a row of three seats to ourselves.

 

 

This area of California is so beautiful. There are mountains everywhere.

 

Here's a little tour of our cabin: 

 

Again, more mountains! 

 

On Friday we took off to see some local areas. Our first stop was Avila Beach. It was a cute little beach town with restaurant and shops right on the ocean, huge cliffs onto the beach, a long pier, and a sandy beach. These next few pictures are of Avila. 

 

Next, we visited Morro Bay. This was another cool town right on the bay, with lots of little shops and restaurants. We rented a canoe and went out into the bay close to a dock full of seals. It was super cool. We were hoping we could get in a game on this giant chess board but there was quite a line for it!

 

Friday night we were invited to come to the rehearsal dinner which was at Shelbi's (the bride) parents' house. It was great to visit with everyone and talk with Mark and Shelbi.

 

Mark was pushed into the water by some of the groomsmen and unfortunately Evan was caught in the line of fire and went in with his phone in his pocket. 

 

The Wedding Day

 

Saturday, Mike and I woke up and had breakfast then got ready and took off for the wedding. It was at a fruit orchard and it was a gorgeous setting.

 

This was a little Fiesta for the guests after the ceremony while the wedding party was getting pictures done.

 

The ceremony took place here on this lawn, then the tables were set up here as well after. 

 

I wish I had taken my good camera but we just couldn't fit it. The scenery around this orchard was amazing. And it was surrounded by mountains. 

 

Before I left, the girls begged me to take a picture of Shelbi's wedding dress. That was what they wanted to see most!

 

It was such a beautiful wedding and a beautiful day. I kept waiting for the mosquitos to come out but apparently, CA doesn't have that problem. Sign Michigan up for that!

 

Sunday was our last day. We flew out of LAX at 11pm. We decided to get up and get going and spend the day seeing the city of LA.

 

We took the Pacific Coast Highway down south and I'm so glad we did because it was gorgeous! We ate lunch in Malibu, checked out some crazy houses right on the ocean, stopped at Ventura Beach, walked the Santa Monica Pier, and then ended up in LA and Hollywood. And just a side note, Mike had the Sheryl Crowe song Santa Monica BLVD, in his head the entire weekend. Wait, let me rephrase that, it wasn't in his head, he was singing it out loud all weekend. Ahhh!

 

This was Rodeo Drive.

 

Hollywood was cool to see but I'll never have a desire to go back. Too congested for me. But it was neat to experience once. We went to the Chinese Theater and saw all the starts on the walk of fame, then saw the hand and foot prints of actors.  

 

After Hollywood, we still had a good four hours before we had to be to the airport so we decided to head to Venice Beach. It was another beautiful beach with a long pier, also pretty crowded. We ate dinner at a little restaurant in Venice Beach, then went and sat in a Starbucks for an hour so we could charge our phones! It was a nice, relaxing, yet busy, long weekend for us. We are so blessed to be able to do things like this!