I'm Back - California Dreaming

I can't believe it's been over ten days since I blogged last... oh wait; no, I totally can believe that! I've been in Las Vegas and California for the last ten+ days and while there was some downtime - for the most part I was out and about doing things and just didn't have time to sit down in front of the computer and share. But I'm back in my lovely Northern Virginia now and you can bet I'll be sharing for...well...probably at least the next week!

Our flight from DC to Vegas was fairly smooth - which, you know I'm always doing all the praise hands for because flying is not my favorite thing, ha-ha! My little sister picked us up at the airport and we made the all important stop at In-N-Out for supper - always the best choice for a post flight meal...specially when it feels like almost midnight to your body and it's screaming "feed me!"

 

Friday morning was very low key (thank goodness) - my younger sister had to go to work for the first part of the day, so I sipped my coffee on the deck, reorganized my suitcase for the quick pop over to California, just bummed around...and shortly after noon, my little sister came home, changed and we grabbed lunch at Cafe Zuppa's (hello - y'all can go ahead and franchise in NoVa and you'll have a customer in ME!) before driving through the desert, into California, picked my Dad up at LAX (on a Friday night - yikes!) and headed to my cousin's Jerry and JoAnn's house, where a delicious feast awaited us!

Thankfully there wasn't really anything going on Saturday morning because I woke up with the worse headache I've had in ages...so many ages... and so after trying to power through with coffee and breakfast, I ended up spending most of the morning heavily medicated in the bed. Boo! Especially because I missed the watching of the Royal Wedding *sigh* Thankfully, my headache began to clear up and I powered through, got ready and around 1:30 we set off for my cousin Kyleigh's wedding in Fullerton!

 

If I look a little glassy-eyed in that picture above, it's definitely because of the combination of headache medication(s) and me trying to power through the lasting pangs of headache feeling...blegh. We stopped midway at Chick Fil A to get a little bit more food in me (I'd taken a lot of medicine...breakfast had passed and dinner seemed a long way off...but mostly, because I took a lot of medicine...) and then we were on the road again.

The venue was Villa del Sol  and it was lovely - we arrived a bit early and joined up with some family before going in... I do love that California emblazoned across the second floor, don't you? Maybe it's just the California born part of me? I don't know... I also loved the string lights and generally the whole vibe!

And while we waited - my sister introduced me to SnapChat...and I discovered the filters and oh man, we might have gotten a little carried away... I still can't quite decide if the filters that make your eyes big and cartoon-y are neat or just a little bit creepy... I still don't know that I'm very good at Snap Chat - maybe that's a sign that I'm getting "old" and I'm not hip to what the cool young kids are doing?

The wedding was lovely - I snapped a couple pictures before they requested that cell phones be put away for guests to be present for the ceremony. I loved Kyleigh's dress, she and her new husband Adam read their own vows to each other and it was all so sweet and lovely (I like the word lovely).

When the wedding concluded, we stayed downstairs a bit for family pictures and then we all congregated up on the balcony for cocktail hour while the newly married couple had pictures made and the venue arranged the tables. We enjoyed cocktail hour just fine, chatting with cousins, sipping some wine and posing for too many pictures (those Snap Chat filters just had to be used...)

We also made excellent use of the wall emblazoned with California - as a California baby myself, I had to snap a couple shots in front of it and since the cocktail hour last...well, about an hour...we had plenty of time to cheese in front of the camera, ha-ha!

We discovered when it was time to sit down for dinner that we'd been placed at what was the easily the best table of the night. It was also the largest, ha-ha! It included our family of four, my cousin's JoAnn and Jerry, their three children and their children's spouses. We had a great time all sitting together and I do love how close we are with our California branch of the family! The meal was delicious and it was followed by toasts and dancing - and while there is no photographic evidence, I did bust a move (or two) on the dance floor!

We headed back for Jerry and JoAnn's around 10:30 and fell into bed well after midnight - thank goodness there was no alarm on Sunday morning! We slept in, had breakfast and poked around JoAnn and Jerry's orchard - they have all kinds of things growing in their yard and I always love looking around. The roses were in bloom, there were lemon and oranges growing and of course, my little sister and I couldn't resist snapping some pictures!

JoAnn and Jerry are such awesome hosts and before we headed out to our next destination, they cooked an amazing Mexican fiesta of chile rellenos, chicken enchiladas, burritos, refried beans, rice and strawberry pie - my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Yum! Lindsey and I couldn't resist goofing off with the decorations on the table - but then again, we can't resist goofing off in general!

We headed out around 3:00 for our next destination - Anaheim and Disneyland for three days! My Dad was only able to be in California for the weekend, so we saw him on to a shuttle at the Disneyland Hotel with hugs and love and headed into Downtown Disney for the evening.

And that's where I'll end this post - because all things Disney deserve their own post(s)...mostly because you know I took a thousand pictures and I'll have to share them all, ha-ha!