The day after we were married we continued our trip to California and thankfully we made it without incident!  There was actually no rain or flooding on Saturday, so the drive should have been quite smooth… For some reason traffic was still pretty bad though, so to avoid it we decided to take a detour.  Well let’s just say the detour that was supposed to save us time actually ended up taking about three hours more!  Though we didn’t love having to spend more time in the car on what’s already a pretty long drive, thankfully it was a pretty drive through the mountains.

 

We also came across this really pretty reservoir area called Silverwood Lake State Park.  It was especially beautiful with the rainbow over it!

We also drove through this place called “Rim of the World” and even though it was crazy foggy, it was still really pretty!

After we came out of the fog, into the San Bernardino area, it was such a pretty sight!  Everything was really green from the rain and the rainbow was awesome!

We arrived in California Saturday evening (after a seven hour drive from Vegas!) and of course our first stop had to be Sprinkles Cupcakes!  Tom had never had them and they’re one of my most favorite things in the world, so we had to make a stop!   Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture… We were just so excited to be in California and eating our delicious cupcakes!   We then went to Charlie’s Chili for dinner with mom and dad, and as always it was so yummy!  I’m not sure why we didn’t take any pictures this night… Maybe because we were exhausted from the drive… Who knows!  But sadly we don’t have any pictures from our first night in Cali!  It was fun to be with the family though and have Tom officially meet mom, dad, Jonathan, and Ryan.  (Also, as a side note, since it was our wedding weekend and essentially our makeshift “honeymoon” we opted to stay in the hotel we’d booked for Danielle and Ryan and they stayed with the parents as originally planned!)

The next morning we woke up early and went to church over at the ward by the Newport Temple.  When we stopped to get our picture in front of the temple, the person who was there who we asked to take it was actually someone who had been in the East Millcreek 19th ward with me about ten years ago… Such a small world!

The church service was really nice… We’ve been to church in a lot of different places and it’s cool how it always somehow feels the same!  Maybe it’s the selfies we take… 😉

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After church, we went to visit Tom’s brother Steve and his wife Marie.  They live in Garden City, California, which was only about fifteen minutes away from where we were.  It was so fun to meet them and tell them our story!  They were so excited and happy for us and I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better!

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We then decided to drive over to Balboa Island and check out Newport Beach with my family!  It was still a stormy day, which made it pretty cold and super windy, but thankfully it wasn’t raining!

We then had a celebratory dinner (for Danielle’s and Ryan’s birthdays and our surprise wedding) at one of our favorite Newport restaurants, Crab Cooker.  It was so yummy — seriously, the crab is amazing!  And, to celebrate, they brought us some smoked tuna with a candle in it… It was so cute!

We then went home and were going to play some games, but we were all pretty exhausted and so we ended up calling it a night.  Tom and I thought it would be fun to take a few SnapChat selfies first, though… 🙂  We often talk about how one of our favorite things about our relationship is that we laugh and have fun every day, and these pictures definitely made us laugh!  (Also, on the face swap one… We really hope neither of those is what our kids look like someday! Haha)

The next day was pretty uneventful… We spent most of it driving home!  We did make a stop at the outlet mall in Primm, where we’d also stopped to get gas, and it was fun to drive through Vegas again and see the city where our love story and wedding became official!  We saw some pretty skies but we also ran into some more fog… The weather was just crazy!

So there you go… Our first official road trip, the weekend we got married, Tom officially meeting my parents, our first visit to a beach, Tom’s first experience with Sprinkles, our “makeshift honeymoon,” an unexpected detour, crazy weather, and quite a few rainbows… Even though it was just a few quick days, we’d definitely say it was an eventful weekend!