Saturday, February 6, 2016

Catalina Island

Jesse and I had been talking about doing a little getaway before we have this 3rd child since we really don't get that much time together and it would be good for us to really have quality time together! And we know its only going to get harder with 3 young kiddos right now.
Anyways so we were trying to think of something we could do. Jesse's Mom volunteered to watch the boys for us so then we felt like our options were kinda limited to Utah since thats where we would be taking the boys-I wasn't too thrilled with the thought of doing something in the freezing cold but Jesse could really only take about 3 days off from work. We talked about going up to the Bear Lake Cabin and relaxing there and maybe going snow moiling...then I was thinking I wanted to go skiing--but Jesse reminded me that I would be 7+ months pregnant and our options are a bit limited as far as activities to do. We talked about Park City as well but then again basically the same thing but the Cabin was free stay. I ended up talking myself into thinking the Cabin was going to be a good place for us to spend quality time even though at first I wasn't too thrilled with the idea. When I went to go look at flights to fly to Utah they ended up being too much at the time we could go and I really didn't want to spend $1000 or so just to fly to Utah but not really spend time with family there. (and we couldn't drive because of our 3 day limit).
I was a little bummed and figured lets just do a small family vacation to spend time all together at least. I began to look into options when my sister Courtney randomly asked me what our plan was for our getaway. I told her that we were now going to just to something as a family but she said it really is good to getaway with just the two of us and we really should! She then volunteered to watch the kids at her house in Cali! I was shocked since she has been so sick since being pregnant-it never even crossed my mind that she would be literally be capable of watching them at this time but I was also excited again that we could try to find something for just the two of us!
Courtney said we should take a cruise out of Cali and that sounded awesome but our time restriction and Jesse's passport being expired that will have to wait for another time-some day I will go on a cruise! ;) I again was having a hard time finding something I wanted to do being winter and being pregnant. My mom suggested Catalina Island. I looked into it and thought it sounded great as far as having a "going to and island" type feel. I was kinda disappointed to know I couldn't do the slip line-since thats one of my things I really want to do someday-but we ended up finding some other activities to do.
Thursday we drove to Riverside and stayed the night at Courtney's house. We woke up Friday morning and went to the Relands temple. We have been wanting to go to the temple together for a long time. And sadly it has been really hard for us to be able to find time-I try not to make excuses but when Jesse has only one day a week to possibly go (which is his Wednesdays)-its hard to find a babysitter for 4 hours, he lots of other stuff he has to get done on his one day off during the week (his other day being Sunday), plus he would like to spend time with the boys, etc it makes it really difficult to go. Not that we couldn't just saying it makes it a little more difficult. So I was super excited to be able to go to the temple together-that was first on our list of things we wanted to make sure we did on our getaway wherever we were going to go!

We drove to long beach, had lunch, and got on our boat to Catalina Island. We went mini golfing that night--which was what we did on our first date together (at Cherry Hill). We played a little arcade-which sometimes I find the little things pretty fun--as far as we were playing Wheel of Fortune together and it came time to solve the puzzle and we weren't close at all (didn't have very many letters filled in). You had 10 seconds to put the first letter in and it came down to the last second and I just hurried and pushed B not having a clue. Well after that Jesse was able to solve the puzzle of it being "Big Wave Surfing". One of those like wow if I wouldn't have randomly pushed B we definitely would have not got that. We went out to eat and made ourselves sick with ice cream! :)
Saturday morning we went out to breakfast then had some time to spare so we hiked/explored around a bit then had our 2 hour kayak tour. I was a bit nervous about how it was going to be kayaking in January but it sounded like a fun activity I was able to do. We had our lovely "water resistant" clothing we put on--not water resistant at all really and we kayaked out to frog rock which was about a mile down the coast I believe. Our tour guide was a native to the island and definitely gave us some insights/knowledge about the island and how the people live there. It was a foggy day but kinda made the island look cool and we kept saying it gave it a jurassic park feel. ha!
We had a semi submarine tour that afternoon-which it isn't a "tropical fish" area but it was the closest thing to feeling like you were scuba diving and being in the water with it being too cold to be in the water. But I still thought it was neat to go and be in a little "submarine".
Dinner and relaxing the rest of the day-just like Jesse likes it! ;) (Jesse was sure to make sure I didn't pack our 2 days too full--cause he knows I can be a little ambitious about all the things I want to do)
It felt really nice and renewing to be able to spend time together with just the two of us and I am glad it worked out that we could-my boys didn't miss me much and Courtney took great care of them-I definitely owe her--thanks! ;) But I can't say we have mastered the lovely many selfies we took....or any pictures--we are just not the most photogenic couple haha!
 

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