New Years in Cali

We kicked off our trip with our tradition of going to see the lights in Long Beach with my mom, bro, and Mike's family. You may notice that my mom and brother aren't in any pictures on this post! SAD! My mom always had her camera so I figured I would just get the pics from her and totally forgot to do that before I left :(

Chanukah: California Style.
Anna and Kate.
Hello, Santa!

When we see hydrangea's we think of Brooke so we took this picture for her.

One of the things that I wanted to do when I was home was to eat the most Mexican food as possible. So we went to Old Town San Diego one day for the absolute best huevos rancheros in the world. I have missed them dearly. Here are some ladies making tortillas.
El Luchador.
Pretty colors. Oh YA, mom got me a Nikon for Christmas :) Thanks mom, sorry I didn't take any pictures of you with it!

Mike had never been to Petco field so we went to check it out. My mom and bro go here a couple of times during the summer for Padres games.

Another thing I wanted to do in CA was go to the beach as many times as I could. I was quite successful with three times. This is in San Clemente. Daniel really wanted a picture of him eating a taco on the train tracks.

Dan and Casi.

Daniel playing with the camera.

This is my favorite picture of the whole trip. I have loved spending the past couple years with family on New Years! My mom and bro came to Mike's house and we played games with family. We played a new game that Casi taught us called "the Couch game." It was so much fun (this coming from a girl who used to hate games)! Anyways the boys were one person away from winning and Mike blew it for them. It was glorious! This is Mike and his team right after their loss ha.
Right after midnight...looks like Papa wants us all to leave now.

Another socal tradition of ours is to visit downtown disney. We went with Mike's friend Aaron and his wife Whitney. Whitney and I had never met but I love to check out her blog! We were instant friends and now we really wished we lived closer to them! Here are the Disneyland fireworks. I think that fireworks in winter (no matter if its a socal winter or not) are my one of my favorite things ever.
Us with Aaron and Whitney.
Us with Mike's cousins, the LaPorte's. It had been WAY too long since we had seen each other.
One my favorite people ever! We promised to never be separated for 2.5 years again!

Beach trip #2 for some Ruby's on the pier. I really like this pic.
Mmmmm.

Beach trip #3. I used to love watching the surfers when I was like 13. Mike and I took a nap on the beach this day...man do I love the beach.

Before we left we decided to clean my grandpa's front window! It was looking pretty dirty. We knew he would say no so we ambushed him.
I think he was happy though :) I LOVE YOU GRAMPS!
So fresh and so clean.

We also enjoyed visiting with Mike's grandparents. Mike started recording their personal histories. It has been really fun to watch him get into that.

Grandma Goldthorpe and I have very similar wedding rings and I have been wanting to take a picture of it forever. She's a special lady.
Our trip was another great one! 3 more months til Palm Springs!!!! Sorry again to my mom and bro for not posting any pics of them. They know we love them though. Mike just pointed out to me that there are no pics of his mom either but those will be on the next post.