Liz and Gary: August 2009

Well this post is long overdue, and just a warning it's going to be LONG because I have so much to talk about and lots of pictures to show!

At the beginning of this month it was our one year anniversary! We couldn't believe it had already been a year. On the same day as our anniversary, one of Gary's investigators from his mission was getting married in the LA Temple, so we went down to California to see that and also do some celebrating of our own.

When we first got there, Gary took me out to see all the sites from his mission. It was so fun to get to actually see all the places he has told me about.

I think one of my favorite places was the duck pond!

In terms of places, the duck pond was a favorite, but in terms of things... the punching trees take the prize. The punching trees were, and still are, my favorite thing ever. Oh how I love the punching trees!!! For those of your not familiar with punching trees. They are magical creations. They are trees that are so soft you can punch them! It's like they are made of foam.

I love them.

This is just a sign that we saw that I couldn't stop laughing at.

We went to eat at a place called Rubys, and believe me when I say, it was the best burger I have ever eaten!
They not only had great burgers, but Ruby is quite the looker!

The next day we drove up to LA. We went to the sealing which was really neat to get to see. After the wedding we decided we would go to the beach before the reception. Parking around Newport Beach wasn't exactly ideal so by the time we found a spot, we only had about an hour to stay. But it was still worth it! We laid out, got sand all over us, and swam in the ocean (if you can call it swimming). I was a little nervous about the whole thing because the waves were so huge since the tide was coming in. It felt like I was going to get sucked in never to return! I kept yelling at Gary to not go so far out. Haha. Later that evening, we headed to the reception. They had the most amazing food! They also had a soft serve ice cream machine which Gary and I were stoked about, but we waited too long to get some and it was out. :P

After that we went back to the hotel to just relax and enjoy our anniversary. Well in the hotel there was some sort of reunion which meant there were about 100 middle aged drunks everywhere. I thought we would be away from all the noise since we were on the tippy top floor at the very end. Well it wouldn't be a story worth telling if that was the case. We were in our room and I hear these loud voices getting closer and I just thought to myself, oh no... please don't come down here. Well they did. Right across the hall in face, but it sounded like they were right in our room. Then something strange happened... an odd odor started filling our room. Yes, that's right, they were not only drinking but smoking some weed too! The smell pretty much instantly started making me really sick. My head was just pounding. So the front desk said they would take care of it when security arrived in half an hour. I didn't want to wait that long because at that point I was just mad! I asked to be moved rooms, but they were full. So we decided to leave the hotel for a while and go get some food. This is where the story gets even better! Someone was parked illegally behind us so we couldn't even leave. That's when Gary finally joined me in being angry! Haha. The manager finally guided us out of our spot through a thousand point turn and gave us free parking, but that didn't really make us feel better. Well when we came back, the smell was gone and it was quiet! At last! But our little romantic evening was quite ruined. At least we have a good funny story to tell though.

We went to the beach again a couple days later and got to spend more time there which was really fun. This time I got brave and actually swam pretty far out in the ocean. It was so amazing! We also picked up lots of shells. Gary was even diving for them trying to get me some good ones. And he was quite successfull because now I have lots of pretty shells that I am going to make into necklaces. We looked like total tourists I'm sure.

That night we decided we needed to celebrate our anniversary in style (even though we were a little late). So we went to The Cheesecake Factory and had dinner. Their menu was about the size of a small children's book so it took me a million years to decide on what to get. Gary and I got the same thing and it was so good! Expensive... but good! After that we went and looked at the Newport Beach Temple, we wanted to go through it but it was closed for cleaning. We walked around it for a while and it was so pretty!