The Ellington Family: Cali

For our second big trip this summer (yes-we are crazy for flying twice in one month with 2 young kids) we headed out to California. David's dad had a conference at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Beach so we tagged along! :) This was our first (and probably our last) time staying in a Ritz and it was awesome! I told David I wanted him to continue the nightly turn down service when we got home but since we hardly ever make our bed he doesn't really have to do any work! Our flight out on Monday was great with the exception that our plane didn't get in until 12:30am West Coast time so it was 3:30am our time. The word exhausted doesn't even come close. We'd been traveling for over 12 hours (we had to drive up to Regan) so we all slept in on Tuesday.

I totally expected the weather in Southern California to be sunny and warm so we packed shorts and t-shirts. I mean, everyone on the reality show Laguna Beach had tans and skimpy shorts so I figured that's the weather we'd experience. Too bad it was rainy and barely 70. We had to buy Jules a a sweatshirt because it was so cold! The weather kept us from laying out on the beach so we spent our time hanging out at the Ritz and shopping in downtown Laguna. David's dad had all of Thursday off so we visited the mission at San Juan Capistrano. They had an audio tour so we listened to the history of the mission as we walked around. There were beautiful gardens and Jules really enjoyed the Koi ponds!

We had a GREAT time exploring the city and we did finally see the sun on Friday. It was still too cool to be on the beach, so we spent the day at the pool. Jules had a great time and we were able to see an amazing sunset over the Pacific before having a wonderful dinner at the Ritz. Leaving on Saturday morning was very sad, but the flight home was even worse. Josie slept almost the whole way home and Jules was also exhausted but we had lots of turbulence so she had to sit in her car seat for most of the flight-not a happy camper. We didn't get home until after 2am! Needless to say we all slept in the next morning until almost 11am!