Surprise, Grandma and Grandpa!

We hadn't planned on going to California this year, seeing as how our car probably wouldn't have made it after the fiasco in Las Vegas, and plus Cody was supposed to have been working at Target through the holidays. Well, as you all know, our Kia was killed by Jiffy Lube in November and we now have a great new car, and Cody was unfortunately let go prematurely by Target. With those two main reasons to stay in Utah now out of the picture, we decided to plan a trip to California, weather permitting. We only told Brianne, who did a great job at keeping it a secret from my parents, and we were set to go.

We left on Friday afternoon, the day after Christmas, and we had great weather the whole way. Joshua was great, too--he even slept a lot of the way down. We arrived around midnight, and we had Brianne come out and get Joshua. She brought him back inside the house and said to my mom, "Look who I found outside!" She was shocked, of course, when she realized who it was. It was great fun! We didn't do a whole lot, just mostly enjoyed the time at home, playing games and eating a lot of junk food. We did get to meet up with my brother Dana and his family at In N Out, and we went to Disneyland with Mom, Dad, and Brianne, where we met up with my uncle Mike and some of his family (thank you, Neil Diamond--selling the tickets to your concert helped us pay for our tickets to Disneyland!). Good times. Here are some pictures (though not very many because we are slackers when it comes to taking pictures...we need to get copies from the ones my dad took). First up, a picture of Joshua in the car on the way down...apparently my cell phone's flash is quite bright!
And here's him sleeping with his little teddy bear on his lap...such an adorable little guy.
Of course, we totally forgot to take pictures when we met up with Dana, Melissa, Luke, and Sydney, so this is the only one we have from that event. The cashier gave us a couple of pages of stickers, so we put them on Joshua's face. Joshua has also taken to smiling by scrunching up his nose and squinting his eyes when he wants to be silly:
All the rest are from Disneyland, taken courtesy of our cell phones because we forgot our digital camera in my purse. First up, Joshua on my shoulders in front of the Enchanted Tiki Room:
The Sleeping Beauty Castle, all decked out with icicles. Isn't it beautiful?
And, of course, It's a Small World. This ride is sentimental to me and Cody--when we had only been dating for a couple of weeks, Cody came with me to California to suprise my dad for his birthday. We went to Disneyland on that trip (it was Cody's first time), and as we rounded the bend in our Small World boat, we kissed and all of the lights suddenly came on. It was pretty cool. Okay, enough mushy stuff. Aren't the lights pretty?And, of course, here we are in front of the ride. It was hard to get a good picture of us with the lights in the background, so this is the best one.
Joshua didn't really get much sleep at all that day, but it finally overcame him (though only for about half an hour). He was such a good sport, hardly fussing at all the whole day, but he sure was all tuckered out.Well, that's about it for our trip. We spent New Years Eve at my parents' home--though Mom decided to treat Brianne and me to the movie Twilight that afternoon. I haven't read the books, but the movie was decent so I've decided to borrow Brianne's copies. We'll see what all the hype is all about, yes? Plus, I'll need something to keep me busy while my husband studies =P Anyway, we rang in the New Year, and then left the next morning after watching a bit of the Rose Parade. It was a good trip, and I'm glad we got to spend some time there before school and work take over. Happy New Year, everybody!