Bailey and I took our annual spring break trip to California! Like always, we had a blast, and made lots of great memories!
The first thing we did was drive straight to the San Diego Temple so Bailey could do baptisms. We think this was the 17th temple she's been to. She loves the temple, and tries to go to one whenever we travel. This one was extra fun, because it's where Mark and I got married.
We spent Saturday on the ranch doing all the fun things we love. We played with all the horses, helped with the chores, drove the golf cart around, and mowed the upper field for my mom.
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| Bailey with her best pal, Nova! |
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| If there is a phone out taking pictures, Nova wants to be front and center! She loves taking selfies with Bailey. So funny! |
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| You make lots of friends when you bring a bag of carrots into the corral! |
I love the next 4 pictures! The horses get extra friendly, and a couple of them get right in your face when you have treats. Bailey was in heaven! So funny!
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| Hahahaha! |
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| Kisses from Nova! She doesn't understand the concept of personal space. If Bailey turned around, she had a big nose breathing on her neck! She's like a big dog! |
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| Our part of the chores is to clean the horse corrals each day. Don't feel bad for her, she even loves this part of the trip! |
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| Bailey mowed the upper field. It took forever, but she thought the lawn mower was fun! I really hope she can have a ranch of her own someday, because she never tires of this kind of stuff. |
That night we had our annual family dinner at Bongiovanni's. I love that we do this each year!
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| Mom, Tricia, Craig |
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| Bailey and Hunter |
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| Mom, Buster, Bailey, Hunter, Tricia, Craig |
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| The whole crew! |
We spent Sunday on the ranch too. This time we rode the horses.
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| Bailey and Mr. Pal |
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| Bailey singing to the horses. This was pretty funny. They were very interested, but too scared to get anywhere near her. |
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| Serenading cute Joey! |
On Monday we trailered the horses to Boulder Oaks to ride. Trailering is our favorite, but we only did it once this year. We love the trail we went to though. It has rained a lot in California this year, so everything was green, and there was a lot of water to cross. That's very rare for that area.
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| Getting ready to ride! |
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| We had 11 water crossings. |
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| So pretty! |
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| Mr. Pal was looking at wild turkeys. |
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| Bailey and Grandma |
On Tuesday we went to Universal Studios. Such a fun day! Bailey was giddy with excitement about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was hilarious to watch her. She had a huge grin on her face the whole time! We are both huge Harry Potter fans, and had just reread all the books, and rewatched all the movies in anticipation for this day. We were both excited, but at least I didn't bust out in giggles every time they asked if we would be paying with muggle money. So funny!
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| Universal Studios! |
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| The Hogwarts Express! |
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| We started out in Hogsmead. |
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| Our first stop was to Ollivanders to get her wand! |
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| This is probably my favorite picture of the day. You can see how much she was geeking out in the wand shop! |
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| Buying her wand! I've never been one to tell my kids what they can and can't spend their money on, but I've tried to teach them to be very responsible with money. Bailey is awesome at managing her money, so I just had to stand back with my mouth closed at the fact that she's 17, and was buying a magic wand! But then it got even better....she bought a wand stand to display it on! I was dying! Her exact words leaving the shop were, "This might be the best purchase I've ever made!" Hahaha! |
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| She wanted to buy robes too, but that's where I drew the line! I was not about to walk around with her looking like a dork the whole day! :) |
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| This witch was showing her how to use her wand, and all the places she could use it to do spells. |
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| Casting spells! |
This video is of her casting a spell to turn the lights on and off. The end is hilarious!
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| Honeydukes! |
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| She was so excited to buy a chocolate frog! The witch at the counter told her to make sure she bit it's legs off first so it didn't jump away, and of course that started her giggling all over again. |
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| Zonko's! |
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| Visiting the owl Post! |
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| Next to buying her wand, eating lunch and getting butterbeer in The Three Broomsticks was a huge highlight of the day! |
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| Butterbeer! |
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| After we were done in Hogsmead, we headed to Hogwarts! |
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| Hagrid's hut! |
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| The castle! |
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| Entering Hogwarts! |
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| The house points! |
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| Dumbledore's office! |
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| Walking through the castle was really cool, but it was hard to get pictures. All the portraits of the castle walls talk. |
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| This is a bad pictures, but the Fat Lady is behind her leading to the Gryffindor common room. |
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| The Weasley's car! |
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| We ended our Harry Potter adventure with a pumpkin pasty and pumpkin juice! |
After the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we went around and saw the rest of the park.
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| Shrek! |
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| Gru! |
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| The minions! |
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| There were a lot of 3D motion rides that usually made us sick, but we did them all anyways. |
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| Jurassic Park was fun! |
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| Nobody in our Jurassic Park boat got wet. I didn't even get a drop of water on myself. I looked over at Bailey at the end of the ride, and she was soaked! Water was dripping from her face, and her pants were soaked! She was the only one who got wet! We were laughing so hard! |
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| If we learned anything from this day, it's that we need to find a way to go to The Wizzarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando! They have Diagon Alley at that one. And after all, her wand will work at both locations (insert eye roll). |
Wednesday was raining, so we just hung out at the ranch. On the way there we stopped at Mark and Jamie's to see their miniature donkey! He's the cutest thing ever! Bailey finally got to ride Nova. That's my mom's horse who just got trained, but doesn't have any riding experience yet. Then we just brushed the horses, Bailey did their hair, and she shot her bow for awhile.
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| So cute! I love how tiny his hooves are! |
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| We really need to get one of these! |
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| Bailey on Nova! |
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| Riding Nova and Max! |
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| Bailey doing their hair. |
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| Shooting! |
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| The sights on her bow are messed up, but she did pretty good just eyeing it! |
Thursday we spent the day at the ocean! We started out at Seaport Village in San Diego! We had lunch at the San Diego Pier Cafe, and then looked through all the fun shops. Then we drove to Torrey Pines State Beach to meet Craig for some surf fishing. After that, we met Craig, Denise, and Hunter at the Sushi Deli for dinner. Fun day!
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| Seaport Village! |
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| The San Diego Pier Cafe! Cutest little place to eat lunch! |
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| Best seats in the place! A seal swam by us while we were eating! |
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| This was Bailey's favorite meal of the trip! So yummy! |
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| Coronado Bridge! |
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| This was our favorite shop! |
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| Getting ready to learn how to surf fish. |
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| Bailey and Uncle Craig! |
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| The water was so cold, and every once in awhile a pretty good size wave would come! |
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| The water was so cold, but she went in anyways. She said you can't come to the ocean and not get in the water! |
Friday we packed up the car, and headed back to Idaho! It's always sad to leave, but good to get home.
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| Three generations! |
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| By Grandma! |
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| Headed home! |
