Hey guys! So, if you didn’t already know, my family came to visit at the beginning of the month. They were here for 11 days but that was not enough time! During their time here, we went to Disneyland, Universal Studios and had so much family time. It was just a magical time overall and I’ve been sad they’re gone ever since they left. Let’s just jump into some details of how our time went!

So, they arrived and unloaded everything into our apartment on Friday night. Eight people tend to have a lot of things but luckily, our apartment is big enough for everyone to fit! Everyone was exhausted from the long drive from Texas so we all just relaxed for the night.

Saturday morning, I woke up to my dad cooking breakfast and, oh my goodness, let me just tell you about how much I missed my dad’s cooking. He was making some salsa and, even though it made everyone start coughing, it made our apartment smell so good. Also, my parents brought some barbacoa from back home and I was so excited. You know I had a taco for breakfast. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and grocery shopping. We ended our night with dinner at Lazy Dog and of course, we took my lazy dog!

Sunday morning my dad and I had to drop off Lyle at the airport because he was flying home for the week. Once we dropped him off, we headed back to pick up Marissa and then were off to Universal Studios! I hadn’t been to Universal since 2008 so it was nice to be able to go back. I was super pumped to check out The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I was not disappointed. I even tried Butterbeer for the first time and it was delicious. We spent the entire day here of course riding all the rides and we even checked out a show! Oh! The new Walking Dead attraction had a soft opening and of course we went. Talk about terrifying though. My brother in law led the way in, followed by my sister, myself, my nieces and Marissa. We stuck to each other like glue, screaming at every little thing that moved. Roger filmed the whole thing from the front and was just laughing the entire time.

We had decided to spend the 4th in Santa Barbara. We went to the Santa Barbara Mission, chilled out the beach and then had dinner at Mac’s Fish and Chips Shop. I found it funny that we were eating at a British restaurant on the 4th of July. Regardless, the food was delicious!

Tuesday was another chill day. I don’t think we left the house until nearly 5 to head to dinner. We grabbed dinner at Chi-chi’s, which is an Italian restaurant and it’s so delicious. After dinner, we went back to Walmart for some snacks to pack for Disneyland.

Wednesday was Ashtynn’s birthday! We celebrated at Disneyland and, of course, had a magical day. We ran around the park like crazy but it’s always such a blast! There isn’t much to say so I’ll just leave you with some photos.

On Thursday, Morgyn spent her day at the pool, my parents were off at the store, and I chilled out at the apartment with Madi and Ash. We finally headed out later that afternoon and had a fail of trying to get to Griffith Observatory. After that didn’t work out, we went to drop off Lyle’s car at the airport so he could get home the next night, grabbed some dinner and picked up Marissa, AGAIN, on our way back home.

Friday was another Disney day! I brought my camera with me this time so cue more Disneyland photos!

The remainder of our weekend was very relaxed. The most exciting thing that happened was on Saturday morning when my sister, Marissa, Lyle and I headed out to chase a fire that was in our area. I was super sad to see that a place Lyle and I have hiked before was burning. Thankfully, it was contained and some of the area is open to hike again.

Sunday was their last full day in town. We spent the day walking around the Glendale Galleria and then stopped at California Donuts on our way home for some dessert. If you ever visit LA, be sure to stop there! The line may be long but it’s worth it for at least one of their delicious treats.

The rest of the night and the next morning were interesting. Long story short, Morgyn left her purse at the mall and inside that purse was my mom’s old iPhone. Luckily we were able to track it down and saw it was still located at the mall. After many phone calls with security and the stores we had visited, no one was able to find it. Monday afternoon, after my family had already left back home, Lyle and I went back to the mall to look for it. When I had asked for help from a worker at one of the stores, I saw the purse sitting at the register. The girl behind the counter said someone had just brought it over. Side note: when we were there the previous day, we noticed someone left their phone behind on a chair. I picked it up and decided to call the last person they dialed. Luckily, that person was with them. When they realized I was calling to give back their phone, they were so thankful. The guy came back and told me “I don’t know what I did in my life to deserve someone like you to return my phone to me but thank you so much.” It may have been something small, but it felt amazing to make someone’s day like that. I’d like to think that the little bit of good I put out that day, came back to me the next day when we went looking for the purse.

Oh my goodness, if you stuck around to read all this THANK YOU! You’re amazing. I just had so many wonderful things to share about my time spent with my family. Some exciting posts will be coming up soon so be on the look out for those! Love you all, and until next time xo.

Hey everyone! It’s been too long since I’ve posted but alas, I am back and with some fun stuff! If you didn’t know, this past week was National Park Week. National Park Week is meant to be America’s celebration of our national heritage. To celebrate, the National Park Service partners with the National Park Foundation and all fees for entering the parks are waived.

Our original plan was to visit two national parks near Los Angeles during this week. However, we figured it’s best we save one for an extended trip. So this week, we headed out to Sequoia National Park. If you remember from my Christmas blogpost, we went to Sequoia National Forest in December. We were pretty happy we took the extra mile (figuratively) to visit the park this time around.

We arrived at the visitors center and, of course, I collected my patch! From there, we drove around a bit to see what we had to explore. Our first stop was the Giant Forest. We made the hike down to see General Sherman, the largest tree in the world by volume! It is also estimated to be over 2,200 years old! Sequoias are insanely massive and there’s nothing like being surrounded by these trees to make you feel so small. We spent some time exploring the sequoias in the Giant Forest before starting to head out.

On our way out, we took a turn to check out Moro Rock. On the way there, we took a drive through Tunnel Log. Sequoia trees happen to unexpectedly fall over. They’re not really known to rot or decay, resulting in their long lifespans. However, if the soil around the tree becomes too wet, that could be one cause of them falling. Tunnel Log fell in 1937 and was tunneled out for a visitor attraction the following summer.

Our last activity before heading out was conquering Moro Rock. I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into when we started our journey up. A little backstory; when we were still at the bottom of the entire drive up, we stopped an an overlook with other visitors. A lady mentioned something about 400 steps to climb to the top of Moro Rock. My first thought was “Um, no thank you.” However, my mind changed once we were standing at the foot of the trail.

We got halfway up to an overlook and Lyle decided to stay behind. I kept going because I felt I had gone too far to turn around. Once I continued up, I didn’t blame him for wanting to stop. It was somewhat terrifying and some parts weren’t protected by railings so one false move and.. well, you know. It was only a quarter of a mile but it was all up a steep trail so it was pretty strenuous. The view from the top and sense of accomplishment was so very rewarding though. There was a panoramic view of the Sierra Mountain range and it was just so beautiful.

We’re definitely already planning to head back and check out some of the other things we missed. Hopefully next time can be an extended trip. I hope you enjoyed and this inspired you to check out a National Park near you! Check out more photos from our adventure below and as always, let me know what you think & thanks for reading!