Catalina trip!!

This year for Mike's 24th birthday we decided to take a trip and this trip was by far our favorite vacation yet. Mike and I had a TON of fun!! Mike had gone when he was a kid and I had never been so we did everything and anything on the Island which meant we were exhausted by the end of every day. Our trip started out early Sunday morning.... early as in leaving at 6:30 early to head on over to the Catalina Express... We decided to sit out on one of the decks which was lots of fun

We arrived on the Island and decided to go check things out, luckily we had a free shuttle service that took our luggage to and from the boat to our hotel.

Mike liked that statue...

This is on casino point looking out at the pier and harbor..

After doing some sight seeing we headed over to have some lunch at Steve's Steakhouse that was soo good! And not only was the food good but soo was the view!

After some delicious lunch we checked into our hotel early and decided it was time to go snorkeling at Lover's cove!! I had never been soo I was really excited!!

It was hard to get used to breathing underwater at first but after I got used to it I had a blast!! There were lots of fishies under the water and plant life!!

After Snorkeling we dried off and decided it was time to go Kayaking! I had never done that as well and that too was a blast! I got really drenched and killed my arms but it was way fun!

After Kayaking we went back, showered and got ready for dinner. This was my least favorite of all the places we ate but it was still good. It was Mi Casita Mexican

After dinner we went over to one of our favorite spots, casino point

The weather was soo perfect the whole time we were there!

Monday we slept in and headed over to go para sailing.......yes para sailing!!

I got soo excited when I saw our church on the sign!!

We were the first to go out that day but there were about 5 other couples who were going to go out on the boat with us as well. I was really nervous but really excited!!

This is before we went up...... I wanted to get the anxiety relieved by going first but we ended up being the second to last couple which made it even worse!

I was holding on for dear life!!

And we're off!!!

We were really high in the air but it was such a beautiful view!!

So something they like to do is lower you into the water, now I didn't mind getting my feet wet and Mike wanted to get drenched! Well they compromised and got pretty much all of our legs wet which was really fun but I was shaking the rest of the time...

Us slowly being lowered.......

Here we are about to land.....

After we survived para sailing we headed over to Armstrong's to get some yummy fish and chips...notice again a perfect view!

After our yummy lunch we headed over to Lover's cove to go snorkeling!

Funny story about snorkeling.....Lover's cove is a preserved area which I thought and what Mike told me was NETTED and you were not aloud to fish. Well the last day we went on an underwater submarine tour and they had mentioned that Lover's cove was not netted.....the minute I heard that I looked at Mike and he just started laughing!! He told me it was netted so the whole time we went snorkeling I was totally fearless of jelly fish, sharks and sting rays thinking they couldn't get to where we were!! I felt pretty dumb after but grateful he did that because he knew I would have been afraid the whole time snorkeling.

After snorkeling we dried off and rented beach cruisers so we could ride around and see more of Catalina!

It was yet another workout because the trail we went on was uphill the whole way...we went up to Wrigley's mansion and the botanical gardens. And to our surprise we couldn't even see it.....it was gated!! But the whole way down was really nice!

After the bike ride we went back to shower and get ready for some dinner. This was my favorite restaurant we ate at!! It was this really cute authentic Italian place that had really delicious food!!

Mike ordered a pasta that had like every fish from the sea in it, it had clam and mussels and salmon and shrimp and calamari and scallops and octopus I actually tried the octopus and Mike wanted to make sure we had proof of!

It actually was not as bad as I thought it was going to be just really rubbery but now I can say I have had octopus!

After dinner we walked to casino point....

Tuesday was sadly our last day there and so we slept in, checked out and did lots of shopping around all of the shops! There happened to be a cruise ship that stopped there that day soo it was really crowded!!

After shopping we went on the submarine tour! You sit five feet under water and they go to Lover's cove so you can see all of the marine life..

We were really sad to go, it was filled with lots of new experiences I will never forget and we had such a great time. It was definately a memorable birthday. Hopefully we will be able to go back some day...

Mike's birthday celebrations to be continued.....