California Trip.

Get ready for a long one... I really should split this up into 5 posts but I'm too lazy :)

This year we decided that instead of taking time off work to visit family for Christmas, we would stay home for Christmas and go on vacation with family instead. We are super excited to spend the holidays in our own home, but we didn't want to miss out on family time so this worked out perfectly. Landon's mom (Suzette), her husband (Jason), and Landon's brother (Dawsen) came from Texas and we stayed with Landon's other brother (Tanner). It was so fun to be with everyone!

We got to California on Saturday around lunch time and mostly just hung around, ran some errands, took naps, and went to Newport beach. It was a really pretty night at the beach. After that we went to Sushi (gag!) but it was still really fun :)

Landon's yucky meal....

Happy Birthday Tanner!!! :)

Tanner and Matt' were SO nice to let us crash in their apartment. We seriously took over and it probably was a big pain but they let us stay anyway! :) I wish I would've taken a picture of their poor living room. All five of us slept in there! It looked like a bomb went off. I still feel really bad about it.

Sunday was Universal Studios day. Tanner was in a vampire performance that was SO good and he looked so creepy! I loved it. And Suzette was freaking out to see her little boy living his dream :) It was so cute to watch her. We went to his show three times! :) In-between the shows we went on the rides and had a blast.

Doesn't he look amazing?!

Landon was the only one with hesitations about becoming a vampire :)

Monday was DISNEYLAND. Oh man, I'm a freak. I'm just so obsessed. I've never been around Halloween and it definitely didn't disappoint. The rides are always so fun but some of our favorites were of course the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion and "Ghost Galaxy." A-maz-ing.

Our cute matching Mickey shirts! We are both obsessed with Mickey :)

super bummed this pic is blurry. Landon LOVED Peter Pan when he was little and would say to his mom, "Come on Wendy, let's fly!" So of course they had to ride Peter Pan together. So cute!!! :)

can't really handle how awesome this was!!!

I love how terrified Suzette is and how all the Richins boys pulled the same face almost :)

But the highlight of the day was definitely seeing Tanner and Matt perform. Tanner is part of the streetcar dancers in California Adventure. It was SO cool to see him singing and dancing (with Mickey too!) He's just so cute and really is a star.

He's in the green pants and red shirt if you can't tell by the way the camera follows him :)

just dancing with Mickey. No big.

Matt is in a show called Mickey's Magical Map and it was SO cute. We got VIP seats and had so much fun watching Matt perform! Those boys are so lucky that they are BFF's with Mickey. I'm a little jealous :)

Matt is just to the left of the monkey :)

Matt front and center :)

Speaking of Mickey... at the end of the day as we were walking over to World of Color something magical happened. I saw Mickey! He was standing off to the side with 2 people in line waiting to see him. Can you believe it? I couldn't either. I just started running and screaming "there's Mickey!" I didn't even wait to see if everyone was following me. Once we got in line, I couldn't help squealing and shrieking and I kept saying "Oh Mickey!" and it was so funny because Mickey kept pointing to me and pretending to blush and tell me he couldn't wait until it was my turn (all through the CUTEST hand gestures). When it was finally my turn he gave me a big hug and then started dancing with me! It was the cutest. Then I kissed his little nose and he got all woozy and dizzy and spun around. Oh my GOODNESS! I have never interacted with Mickey so much. It was seriously a dream come true. Landon says he wishes he would've gotten it on video because it was the cutest thing he's seen :) I just can't help it... I love Mickey!

What was really cool is it was the same Mickey that Tanner danced with earlier! I wish Tanner would've been in this picture too, but it was really cool to get a picture with the Mickey from his performance. I love Disneyland so much! It's just so magical.

Tuesday was our last full day and we spent it by going to lunch, going to Huntington Beach, and going to dinner at Cafe Rio.

so fun watching the surfers and we even saw a pod of dolphins!

I paid Dawsen 3 cents to jump up and let me take his picture with the surfer :)

We had SO much fun with everyone. Thank you Tanner and Matt for getting us into Disneyland for free, for letting us crash at your apartment, and for the wonderful time! You guys are seriously the best!!!!

Now we only have 3 weeks until our Disney cruise! And we will hopefully (fingers crossed) have our boat before then too. So much excitement I can hardly stand it.