California Getaway!!

Thursday night, March 7th . . . Natalee moved home to find a job in St. George and get ready for her wedding in May.  Friday afternoon, March 8th . . . Rod and I left town!  *_*  NO, not because of Natalee; but it did work out extremely well that Nat was here, and we didn't worry about leaving...thanks, Nat!!

I had a national Music Teachers Association conference that was held at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California, AND we had a friend offer to let us stay in her condo in Newport Beach the week we were going to be down there since she was going to be out of town...what an incredible blessing that was!!  So we left St. George as soon as Rod got home from school, and arrived in Newport Beach around 11:30 p.m.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early and at the hotel by 7:00.  Spent the whole day in classes and learned a ton!  That evening we went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse.  Delicious!!



Sunday was kind of funny in that we showed up at an LDS meeting house...just to find out it was Stake Conference!  Two other cars with "visitors" showed up, too!  We managed to find another building (in Tustin...Jack Rushton's old ward), but we were about 20 minutes late.  It was their Ward Conference, but ALL of the talks and classes were REALLY good!  We were so glad we went!!  After church we found the Newport Beach Temple and walked around the grounds.  It was really beautiful.  After lunch at the condo, we took Jen's dog, Jon, for a walk to the beach.  It was only about half a mile away, and we went out on one of the jettys and enjoyed the gorgeous afternoon, the sound of the breaking surf, and watched a TON of crabs on the rocks.


Monday was more classes for me at the conference, but Rod dropped me off, and had the car for the day.  That evening he met me at the hotel for the Gala Dinner where Dr. Lynn Dean was being honored for his great contributions to music.  Even though the cost was $100/plate, it was a VERY enjoyable evening, and I loved having my husband there with me!!  Since this was my first conference, I wasn't sure what to expect, but these ladies were so much fun to be with.  The Mickey Ears really set the UTAH DELEGATION apart from everyone else!

Tuesday we did some exploring, and ended up on the Peninsula, and even found a place that rented out a sailboat for us to use...as long as we paid for the sailor to drive it!  It was perfect for our first time on a sailboat!!  I think Rod enjoyed it at least as much as I did!  We'll definitely go again!!





Wednesday we took the ferry out to Catalina Island, went on the Submarine ride/tour, saw some cool fish while under water, then walked a bit, then rented a golf cart for three hours and drove up and down the mountains and saw some cool views without doing much sweating!!



There was ONE shop that had what I was looking for...and it was closed!  It was a shop with FLAGS...and I would have bought a Catalina Island flag!  Oh well!!  If it would have been warmer we would have gone snorkling or kayaking, but we had a lot of fun anyway.  The ferry ride to and from was a little over an hour long, and it was very comfortable.  Beautiful ocean ride!!

Thursday we drove up to Malibu and had a tour of the J. Paul Getty Villa/museum.  It was very impressive, but the thing that probably interested me the most was the mummy.  That was cool!  I can't imagine how much money Mr Getty had to have amassed to be able to fund such a place.  And it's nothing compared to the MUSEUM in Santa Monica!

After that we drove to the Los Angeles LDS Temple, and managed to get there with just enough time to change out of our "tourist" clothes at the Family History Center, and get into the temple for the 3:30 session.  While we waited the few minutes before the session, a lady leaned over and said, "Are you Sister Hunt?"  I was a bit surprised and said, "Yesss..."  She said, "I'm Leanne Olsen, Katie and Peter's mom..."  I was SO surprised, and we talked as much as possible before the session started.  Wow, what a small world!!

After the temple and taking pictures outside, we changed back into our other clothes, and drove down to the beach to spend a couple hours just reading down by the surf.  It was SO relaxing, and MUCH better than sitting on the freeways for two hours to travel 20 miles!

When we got back to Jen's we got most of our stuff packed, cleaned her apartment, and ate the rest of our leftovers.  Rod pointed out that we were gone for a week, didn't eat fast-food once, and only ate out at a restaurant once.  More of the perks of staying at the condo!!  THANK YOU, JEN!

Friday morning we were up early, and on the road by 6:30 a.m.  Traffic going our direction was fairly light and we didn't have any backed up traffic to deal with  We arrived home (with the loss of an hour due to time changes) at 1:00, and were VERY surprised to see the water feature in the backyard nearly complete!!  It's going to be SO cool when it's all done and things are cleaned up!

We got unpacked, kind of, and by 3:00 Nat and I were out on the horses with Erika's brother, Dane, and his friend Lance.  I think Dane finally understands why Erika and Kent like to come down to St. George so much...he said he'll be coming down every chance he gets!!

When we got done riding, Hans and Mil came over with Dezmond.  They dropped him off for a Friday night with Grandpa and Grandma while they ran some errands.  We had so much fun with him and he didn't miss them one bit!!  *_*  And that was the perfect end to a WONDERFUL week!!