ANDRUS-R-US: California Trip: Best Trip Ever!!

California still feels like home to me, even though I haven't been back for years now. The sunshine from the Sunshine state always puts me in a good mood. We wanted to go check out our prospective wedding venue in San Diego and thought we'd hit up my home town on the drive down, so that I could introduce Mike to my roots. We had such a blast, it really was the best trip ever :)

We stayed at our good friends' house, the Larges, and took a jog over to my old house, then continued on up the STEEP hill to catch this amazing view. Down below is my old high school, Saugus High.

Love this family! The Lightners :) Seeing them brought back all kinds of memories. They lived down the street from me and I spent a great deal of time hanging out at their house. It made me so happy to get to visit with them.

And here it is! My old house! Looks the same... but different.

My FAVORITE place to get ice cream was at the Thrifty's down the street. I always got chocolate malted crunch! Thrifty's turned in to something else...but they still have the delicious ice cream! Only it wasn't as cheap as I remember...

We also made a stop to visit an old cheer buddy from high school, my friend Courtney. We got to meet her adorable daughter, Quinn, who called Mike "Mr. Mike"

Next stop: Castaic, to visit another childhood friend, Karen... they were just moving in to this new house with their family and were super excited about it.

After we left Santa Clarita Valley, we headed south for San Diego to scope out the scene for a small wedding. We stayed near Coronado Beach, at the Bayfront. My app on my phone suggested we try breakfast at the Broken Yolk Cafe. We witnessed someone eat an obscene amount of food there. They took the cafe challenge where they got the whole meal free if they could eat it all in an hour. Fail. He didn't even come close. The food was quite delicious though! And I had the most handsomest of dates to accompany me.

I'm marrying him :)

The Bayfront hotel in the background. Beautiful San Diego. Favorite favorite place!

Smooch shot...what can I say, we're in love! :)

We snapped a shot as we drove by the famous Hotel del Coronado

A shot of the engaged couple standing on the very beach we will be wed! Imperial Beach. It was an overcast day, so we were a little apprehensive about the San Diego wedding idea in November... in the end we decided to just go for it and book the wedding here :)