Trip from Santa

We asked Santa for a trip to California this year.  I love for Santa to give us trips and not a lot of stuff. The kids will play with their toys for a week and then never look at them again.  

Trips offer the best memories, ones my children will never forget.  We stayed in Anaheim and went to Disneyland, the beach, and Universal Studios.  I went to the best place of all, by myself (thank you husband), the Big Daddies Antique Store.  It was amazing.  

We then headed for San Diego and went to the zoo and Sea World.  It was a great trip, but exhausting.  I needed a vacation from my vacation. LOL  

We returned the day before Christmas Eve, had to straighten up the house for our family Christmas party that we host every year.  

I tell ya it was a crazy 2 weeks, but luckily we have had this week to relax. whew!

My impersonator.

We love the San Diego zoo!

Sea World was great, but is turning into an amusement park and I am not amused!!!

The best store I have been in for a long time.  AMAZING!!!

The beach is one of my favorite places to visit in California, I LOVE IT!

Grinch

I have to say that I am not a person that loves Christmas.  I like it because I have children and they love it.  It is fun to see them so excited. 

Saying all that, there is one thing that I do love about Christmas time.  It is paper whites, I love to force them and they make me so happy.

 

I also have a little tree collection that I love!

The Most Wonderful Place

I think I have been to heaven and back!  I went to visit my sister in Georgia, in her adorable little cottage.  We had the best time!  We went on a little vaca. to Palmetto Bluff, SC where I almost had a heart attack from my excitement of the place.

Of all of the places I have been this seemed more like home than anywhere.  I fell completely head over heals with this community.  It was like being on a movie set, a perfect movie set without a thing out of place.

My sister's sister-in-law owns a dreamy house there that we stayed in.  We where there for 5 days and I never wanted to leave.

The community is set on acreage from an old plantation.  There are dense woods all around, rivers that run into the ocean, and ruins of the plantation, that sadly burned down, and ancient cemeteries. 

The natural aspect of this place is heaven in itself, but add to that glorious new homes that look old, gas lanterns on the streets, and a wonderful community center and it really is perfection.

I would move there in a heartbeat if it wasn't so pricey and if I could ever get my husband to move out of Salt Lake.

You must visit their website and see what I am gushing over.  Here are some of the photos I took too. but I am not sure that it does it justice:

one of the darling homes in the community

part of one of the rivers on the property

 

the community has 2 pools that are heated, one for adults only and one for families

cemetery from when the plantation was there

gas lanterns everywhere

millions of different species of mushrooms, which I love!

a chapel that you can rent out for weddings

columns from the old plantation's porch

you can join a boat club and have a boat for the day

I could go on and on about this place!

Back, Better Late Than Never

I finally found time to blog, yippee!  

I have been so busy and out of town so long that I haven't had time to post my daughters Halloween Birthday Party, and that was over two weeks ago.  I will post more later on where I have been.  

But for now, let's take a look at a fun birthday!

It was a great day for my new 7 year old!