Kourtney: California

For all of those out there reading this who are NOT married yet, plan and pay for your honeymoon BEFORE your wedding day. If you don't it won't happen. The day after you get married, you realize how poor you are and a honeymoon doesn't seem to happen quite like you dreamed.

BUT we did go on a "honeymoon" eventually. The last week of summer vacation, we drove out to California. The first day there, we spent with my Great Great Uncle (his mother is my Great Great Grandmother - how cool is that?!). He and his wife and their daughter, who lives with them to help care for them as they age, are some of the most incredible people I know! We ate dinner with them, played Dominos, and talked about his parents and his childhood. I could have sat and listened for days! I love them and their example of love and service! We spent the night at their home and I wished I had a few more days with them!

But we were off to our "honeymoon." (I didn't count staying with family as a honeymoon!) Jared and I drove to Knotts Berry Farm. I had never been before and Jared loves his memories there so I was excited! We walked in and our first ride was this one...

The park was a bit busier than we had hoped. California kids were still on Summer break, but we still made it on nearly every ride. Unfortunately, Jared's favorite ride was closed for the day. We really enjoyed the cool water on the log ride though!

We also went to all the shows. Jared had never been to them so we both were seeing them for the first time.

I loved being there with just him! We talked all day as we waited in lines. Being at a theme park, we kept with my family tradition and got a churro - the most overpaid splurge of our trip. Once the sun began to set, the park really cleared out and we went on tons of the rides with much shorter lines.

That night, we walked back to our hotel that was right near the park. It was a nice room but nothing fancy (because we realize how poor we are! haha!). It did have blackout blinds though so when I woke up at nearly 10am (thinking it was 5am), Jared and I had to scramble to pack up and be out before checkout time. I now know how amazing blackout blinds are! Wow!

Once we packed up, we headed for Laguna beach. We knew it was a busy beach, but we had heard that all the shopping and restaurants around there are amazing so we had to check it out. We had a blast at the beach just soaking in the ocean breeze and people-watching. Isn't that a classy picture of us?!

Thanks to my aunt, we found the CUTEST and most DELICIOUS Italian Gelato Shop in all the world! You could get THREE flavors in one scoop. We spent over 20 minutes just testing flavors and deciding what we wanted! It was amazing!! You could smell the waffle cones from blocks away! And... that concludes our honeymoon! :) It was short and sweet but actually just perfect for us - any time I have with Jared is amazing!

That evening, we met up with my aunt Kathy. She lives nearby so we had dinner with her and her roommates and stayed at her place that night! (Thanks Kath!) She took us on a night-walk around the beach that night that I loved! The following day, she had planned out a full-day of fun. We started off by driving to a beautiful beach with this view seen below. How amazing!!

We had planned to learn how to paddle board there, but it ended up being a "no stand-up board" time so we headed off to lunch at Banzai Bowl. Oh. My. Goodness! If I could blink a Banzai bowl here right now, I would! It was heavenly!

Next, we were off to another beach. Kathy had only been there once and hadn't been able to explore it much so not even she was aware of how awesome this place was! Below is the view from a little hike we did. Do you see the cove in the background? In order to get to it, you either have to own a home on the other side of it OR you have to swim around that major rock formation. Seen as we were on "this" side of the rock formation, the only way over was to swim there. So... despite some crazy undertow and waves that literally crashed on the sand, we swam out and around. It was not an easy swim and your timing had to be just right in order to not be thrown into the sand (like we saw many people do).

Once we got there, I could not get over how pretty the view was! It was INCREDIBLE! I wanted a picture so badly but my camera was on the other side of the rock so it seemed as though it was impossible! But, there happened to be a couple there who had come from the "private beach" side and had their phones. I went up to them and kindly asked if they could take a picture for us and then email it to us. They were SO nice! So the picture you see below? Yeah, I worked so hard for that picture! That cove had crabs and clams and starfish and all sorts of neat things in it! It was so neat!