Day #1: Balboa Pier & Sneak Peeks

March 4, 2016

This morning I woke up in my Snow #208 bed and was forced to endure the longest 8:30am Stats 1040 recitation lecture that I've ever experienced. It was awful and I swear the TA was purposely speaking in slow motion just to make it worse. But now, I'm sitting in a hotel bed across the street from Disneyland. And that made a whole week of studying my face off for mid-terms seem a little bit more worth it. Now it's finally Spring Break and we are going to Disneyland! I've been craving Disneyland (and a trampoline too- but that's another story) for a really long time and my parents decided that we should all go as a fam bam for my Spring Break this year. Yes, that does mean Hannah and Max end up getting two Spring Breaks resulting in three weeks of break total, but I'm just going to ignore that fact for now.

The Adventure to California
My dad drove up to Logan last night from Provo and picked me up from my dorm around 9:30 this morning. We grabbed yogurts and bottled water from Lee's Marketplace before driving down to the Salt Lake airport and hanging out in the fancy Delta Sky Club drinking spa water and eating chocolate chip cookies. Meanwhile in Jackson Hole, Mama Laura, Hannah, and Max were boarding a plane to come and meet up with us in the Salt Lake airport.
The flight from Salt Lake to the John Wayne airport was about an hour and a half and I got to sit between these two random dudes, one of which was eating his salad like he'd never eaten food in his entire life flinging salad dressing everywhere and the other was furiously reading the biography of Thomas Jefferson. My life is fun. We rented a super stylish mini van (I decided her name is Minnie Mouse but my family is yet to agree with me) and drove past all these crazy houses that my dad had helped build on Balboa Island. Like way crazy houses. Then we rode this ferry that you drive your car right onto and they take you to the other side of the island. It was way weird and a little trippy but saved us like a half hour of driving so not mad.
FOREWARNING: there will be lots of selfies on this trip
There is this cute little retro diner called Ruby's on the end of Balboa Pier that Mama Laura went to when she was younger and used to come to Newport to visit her aunt and uncle that lived here.. My family is really good and finding good food so I might as well keep a little travel food journal on here for you. So here's what I ate...
Ruby's Diner: Turkey & Cranberry sandwich with fries and some of Hannah's chocolate milkshake for a score of 4.75/5 because the fries got cold really fast which was mostly my fault but whatever there are worse things on this planet than eating cold fries.
Once the sun set and I finally finished the majority of my fries, we decided to drive to our hotel and check in. But in the meantime we ran into crazy traffic jams that were stressing me out from the back seat so I just took a quick power nap. We are staying at the Marriott hotel which is right next to Disneyland and lucky for us, the windows in our room are looking out away from Disneyland. That's just how it goes though. But there's an outdoor pool on our floor and so we can watch the Disneyland fireworks from there which is cool. 
It was only like 8:00pm by the time we came back and the Disneyland bug was making me crazy so we walked over int Downtown Disney which was a perfect little sneak peek and reminder about how awesome Disneyland is. I am so excited to go ride the rides tomorrow and am just excited for all of it. Including being occasionally run over by baby strollers and the mad dash towards the characters and people watching. I love people watching.
We love the Rainforest Cafe- but not the food
Max getting pretty in Anna & Elsa's Boutique
Darth Vader is excited to be here
SOS there's so many ears, I don't know which one to choose
The rest of my family is passed out asleep right now and Disneyland opens in like eight hours and I'm so ready to be the first person at the gates (sorry little five year old girls in princess dresses, I've waited a long time to be here so you can scoot over) but I think that we will probably show up at like noon. Woo. But don't worry, I'll be wide awake and ready to go because I LOVE DISNEYLAND. I think that I am going to switch my major into Disney Princess because let's be real, that's the coolest job on the entire planet. I would love to be Princess Anna or Ariel every day for the rest of my life.

Even though it looks like I'm sea sick in this photo, I'm not. I am just looking at the barnacles latched onto the bottom of the pier. Earth and nature and stuff is so cool.
I'm going to Disneyland tomorrow in case you missed the memo.
It's the happiest place on Earth.
Love, Caitie

 
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