Our Honeymoon: San Diego

Brandon and I got the opportunity to go to San Diego for our honeymoon. Man, it was something else! We left our girls with a classmate (after an E-vet run the night before we left since one decided to get sick and needed antibiotics... again.)

Monday, July 25th: Brandon's grandparents drove us to the Idaho Falls airport, where our flight was 3 hours late coming from Vegas to IF... so we sat there for 3 extra hours as I ran around finding numbers to our hotel and the car rental place to let them know we'd be late. The flight was crazy bumpy and I thought I was going to be sick. I hate flying enough as it is... and then you add a pilot who has rough take off and landing PLUS turbulence and man did my head hurt. We arrived in Long Beach (2 1/2 hours from San Diego) and went to get our rental car. The lady took our card and swiped it without even telling us the price (which was 80$ higher then quoted.) When I asked her about it she told me that they put 20% extra on your card until you bring it back. We've rented with Enterprise more times then I can count and that NEVER happened. THEN, we go out and he asks us what kind of insurance we wanted. Well, we were planning on risking it and getting none but he tells us that it's required in the state that all cars be fully covered (which we found out later is also a load of bull.) So we got scammed out of about $200 dollars more then quoted. Sad huh? We got to our hotel and it was AWESOME. Like it's own little apartment. And... we crashed.

Finally got it's tail out of the water! 

Natural History Museum

Tuesday: We started off the day at the natural history museum. I wasn't impressed. It was small and didn't have a lot to offer, but it was fun none the less. After eating at Chick-Fil-A (one of three times that whole week) we made the drive to Newport Beach (one hour away) and went whale watching. It was Brandon's favorite part of the whole vacation. We saw a few blue whales and a fin whale. As well as a few dolphins. The blue whales get up to 120 feet and was about 30 feet from the boat. We were both like little kids in a candy shop. After we got back to San Diego, we decided it was time to eat, but nothing was open so... DENNY'S it was. We pulled up and saw about 2 cop cars and thought "Eh, maybe a drug bust. No big deal." We parked and went to go on the sidewalk when a cop said "We need you guys to go around." Then we saw a guy laying on the sidewalk with his chest all wrapped up. Scared out of my mind, I came to find out that this guy had been stabbed and then dropped at the Denny's. Well, long story short, we had to be escorted out and had to walk past a guy who WAS alive when we first saw him, but died shortly after we ended up inside, turning it into a homicide. The cops got all of our information. Address, phone number, driver's licenses numbers, etc. Quite the experience. Here's the story: http://www.cbs8.com/story/15175000/youth-found-stabbed-outside-mission-valley-dennys-idd

Wednesday: We went to SeaWorld and it wasn't too bad. Brandon had ALWAYS wanted to see Shamu, so that's what we did. We saw everything we wanted to see, and that was about it. It's not worth the money you pay to go more than once in my opinion. Plus all the rides were broken. :( We ate at Joe's Crab Shack that night. Brandon got his first dose of Crawfish. They were delicious, although I still need to show him REAL Cajun crawfish!

Thursday: This was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. Almost. We went to the San Diego Zoo and MAN, that place is HUGE. We spent 6 hours there and still missed a few animals. I love the variety and love how close you can get. I think it's 100X better then the Denver Zoo. Got quite a few awesome pictures. We spent a while watching the orangutans. They're so human like it's crazy. After the zoo, I got to meet up with my cousins and uncle. We went to a mexican restaurant that has the BEST fried ice cream in the world. We found out that San Diego is a Mormon settlement. We didn't get to go up there, but still. We also got a chance to go to this root beer store and we bought some root beer called "Dang's" and DANG was it good. I'm trying to find a good price online haha.

Friday: We went all the way into LA to go to Universal Studios and they have some INSANE rides there. They have a new one called King Kong 360 4D. They take you on a tour of the backstage stuff for movies and then they take you into this cave. It has a screen that's like... 18 feet long and wraps all the way around you. It feels like you're right smack dab in the middle of a King Kong fight. I have never seen anything like it... Ever. Pretty good way to spend the day. We tried "In-n-out" this night but only because my cousin's wife told us to retry it. I tried it in Provo and it wasn't that good. She said they must have "utahfied" it. And she was so right. They are delicious. Of course I'd still choose Chick-fil-a over it, but it was one really good hamburger. I didn't get to see the Hollywood sign though :( Sad. ( I didn't take any pictures here because I didn't want to take my 800$ camera and have to leave it when I went on rides.)

This is the female that is over breeding age :(

And the male. 

Saturday: We went off to the Wild Safari Park on Saturday. It was awesome to see so many endangered animals. Fun Fact: Did you know that only 5 Northern White Rhinos exist on the earth today? 2 of them are at the Wild Animal Park. Their female is past breeding age, and so they're left with what they think is the LAST male While Rhino in the world. They are trying to get him with another female elsewhere... otherwise, these animals WILL go extinct. END OF STORY. So sad. Thank you POACHERS. I have a few pictures of both the male and the female. Oh and this day was like... 105* outside. It was so freaking hot!

Sunday: We went to the Birch Aquarium. Please. Anyone, don't go there. It's such a waste of money. But anyways, we went there, and then drove around trying to find the gaslamp district. It was there, but it cost like $15 to park. No thanks. So, we instead, went and had food at this buffet. A buffet with freaking crab legs! I think I ate my weight in them. We actually went 2 times while we were here. And then we went to what is call Sunset Cliffs. BEAUTIFUL. We got to watch the sun go down until it was just a little dot and then it disappeared. Something I'll never forget, and definitely the most romantic part of our honeymoon. I loved it and I'm sure Brandon did too. We also got to go on a Ghost Hunting tour. The guy who leads it is brilliant! He charges $20 a person, does that twice a night and we had 35 people on our tour. Add that up and it's something like 142,000$ a year! Just to tell stories about ghosts. Brilliant.

That was the end of our honeymoon, and something that is in NO way forgettable. Brandon and I became a lot closer over that week, and it was nice to have the break!