The Honeymoon!

Jamaal and I had a really good time on our honeymoon. We were gone a total of 8 nights, which was the perfect vacation. We felt like we were gone for a month! (but it did not feel like it was dragging on and on...).

We started out at a Best Western, across the street from Disneyland. It was just a short walk from our hotel to both parks, Disneyland and California Adventure. We spent 4 days in Disneyland starting the afternoon we arrived; since we had so much time for the parks, we took our time seeing everything. We had a good time on the rides, and spent lots of money on food in Disneyland. :D

Here we are waiting in line for Space Mountain. Jamaal's first time on it.

Here is an action shot of us on the Matterhorn.

I really wanted to go to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. but since Jamaal isn't a big fan of seafood or fish, I figured we wouldn't go there. Jamaal surprised me and said we should go there because he knew I wanted to try it. We were both happy we did, because we really enjoyed the food, drinks, and even the wait staff! It was a fun experience. (And the food was amazing!) It was funny because I ordered "Bucket of boat trash" which came with shrimp, fish, and lobster claw. Well later on in the trip, Jamaal and I went to an aquarium, and there was a really huge lobster there. I said that I had eaten some of its friends, (and that I didn't like it), and Jamaal said that I hadn't. He ensured me it was crab that I had eaten. "Lobsters don't have claws, look at it," and he pointed at the huge specimen of lobster. I was pretty sure I was right, but he wore me down. Later on, we ran into another Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the menu was posted outside. I had to check, and sure enough I was right it was Lobster Claw! I definitely rubbed that one in his face...haha.

Here he is with his special drink! Mine had blueberries in it. It was heavenly!

In the California Adventure they are coming out with a Little Mermaid ride, which I am so jealous of...I guess that means we will have to go back for that ride!!

At the ESPN Zone, Jamaal ordered a "Wipeout" inspired drink. It came with a lite up ice cube. (Which is the reason he ordered it...) But it had like Tequila and some spice in it, so that it had the worst aftertaste ever. He barely drank it.

After trying his drink...grooooosssss. :D But the food was really good.

Waiting in line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. It's not that wild of a ride, just in case you weren't sure.

In the California Adventure they have a Bug's Life area, and I loved this bug. We look so similar don't we??? I loved the 3-D bug show, that they have. If you haven't seen it, I would recommend it!

This picture we took while waiting for the fireworks. It was a very frustrating experience trying to see the fireworks, because there was no order. Jamaal and I wanted to watch the fireworks over the lake, not the ones over the castle, but they had some special thing going on where you needed a bracelet to watch them over the water. I don't know what the deal was. But, the coolest part was watching Tinkerbell fly over the castle!! And then later, seeing Dumbo fly!! It was soooo coool! I think it would be sooo much fun to be Tinkerbell!!

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After 4 busy days in and around Disneyland, we were ready to move on. I have to say that Disneyland was really good birth control, because of the numbers of children. They were everywhere! Screaming, running, touching me while in line, it was really annoying!! Mostly it was annoying seeing the parents just stand and watch their children invade my personal space. During one line, there was a girl of about 7 or 8 years old, and she kept kicking me, scooting up close to me, and her father asked her to stop, but she just kept doing it. That is when you physically move your child a step back...
Jamaal and I also could not believe that parents would bring 2 month olds to the park. What is the point??? You can't go on any rides, the wee babe can't either. And here you've paid good money for your ticket, only to carry the child around....looking at stuff you can't do. To each his own...my children will not be going to Disneyland until about 7 or 8 or so. Unless they have displayed their maturity at an earlier age, and they are tall enough to go on everything. :D I think that's about 48 inches...

Friday morning, we checked out of our cheap Best Western hotel room, and drove about 30 minutes to Huntington Beach. After checking in, we walked a short distance down the beach. The weather was comfortable, but not very hot. This is the bridge we took from our hotel to the beach.

Jamaal was looking at places to go in and around Huntington Beach, and found an Aquarium in Long Beach about 15-20 minutes away. We decide to go one evening. We arrived there at 5:00pm, and according to Jamaal, they closed at 9:00pm. We went to the doors and were greeted by an Aquarium worker: "We will be closing at 6, but tickets are half off." We decided to still go, since it was half the price, and it wasn't that big of an aquarium. It was fun. My favorite fish is above. He was HUGE!!

The aquarium had tons of sights to see, we saw it all in 45 minutes.

This is us during the drive to the San Diego Zoo, which is an interesting story...

Jamaal looked up directions on his phone using the google maps application, and according to the phone it would take about 30-45 minutes. Well, about 30 minutes into the drive, I noticed a sign that said "San Diego--75 miles." I didn't say anything, because I had figured it would take longer than 30-45 minutes to drive there. Just a few minutes after that, however, Jamaal said that he had missed a turn. That is when I told him that I had seen a sign that said we still had a while to go. Jamaal pulled over, and did a little research on his phone, and realized that the previous location we had been going toward was an "unverified" location. We indeed had about 1.5 hours left on our journey. Before we left the hotel I had asked Jamaal when the Zoo closed: "9 pm." He replied. We finally made it to the zoo at 4:50pm. Can you guess when the zoo really closed?? Fortunately, not 5pm. But 6pm. We had only an hour to go through the entire San Diego Zoo!! Since it was such a long drive, we knew we were not going to come back again, so we decided to still buy tickets. Unfortunately, they did not discount with only an hour left. We had a good time in the zoo, there was so much to see. We definitely did not see it all in only an hour. Most of the animals were asleep for the night. And you should have seen the line to see the pandas!! It was longer than some of the lines at Disneyland!! (We were not that desperate to see a panda...)

In front of the Zoo!!

They had a ton of monkeys/gorillas/orangutans; here is me posing with one of the fake ones!

The view from our hotel room. We lounged at the pool one warm afternoon.

Here we are again in the car. This time I think on our way back to our hotel after going to Universal Studios. We really had a good time there. The rides were a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed the shows. We bought "front of the line" passes which meant that we never went into a line, we always went straight to the front. It was so fun!!

I didn't post any pictures, but we also went bowling before catching our plane home. We played 3 games, and I won 1 of them...and that was a really close game. In my defense, though, I was worried about breaking a nail!! :D It is pretty typical of him to win. We went and saw two movies during the first half: The Hangover and Land of the Lost. Both of them were enjoyable. The Hangover was hilarious. We really enjoyed it (and I did not want to see it, but did because I knew he wanted to see it).

Overall, it was a blast!! Maybe now I've learned to check when things open myself...I'm way too trusting! :D