A Berry Special 40th for Laura

When I realized that this January would mark Laura's 40th birthday, I knew that I had to do something to make it special. More than anyone I know, she has been isolated during these last few years of the pandemic. Moving out to the middle of nowhere, Ridgecrest, after marrying George has made it difficult for her to get out. They don't even have a Target!!! With two littles, she has been in the trenches of mom life, so I wanted her to have some time away to have some fun. I proposed a girls weekend together, and she liked the idea. She really wanted to go to Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, so I took care of the hotel accommodations for us both and made arrangements to fly out for a three day, two night visit just her and me. Our first time doing something like that!

I flew down to John Wayne airport from Spokane and took my first Uber to Knott's Berry Farm Hotel. Luckily, the trip was smooth and the Uber not as scary as I had thought. Laura and her family drove down together from Ridgecrest. George dropped her off to hang with me and then went over to his mom's house in Irvine.

Laura had gotten herself a season pass and I used the two admission tickets included with the hotel, and we spent the next two days doing all the things and eating all the food. It was great! 

Something I learned about Laura which I had not known before is that she loves boysenberries. They are not a super common berry, but she loves their taste and we ate all the boysenberry treats we could find. She also loves how they look and got to flex her shopping muscles in search of all the berry merch. She came away with an ornament, cutting board, apron, pot holders, tea towels, jam and cream holders, measuring cups and a mug. She also found some cute light up miner hats for herself and the kids. She had told me about how hard it is shopping with littles. Either they run amuck in the store, or George would take them out and she would be like she needed to hurry so that he didn't have to wait for too long. Now she could take all the time she wanted. She also got to ride all the rides she wanted. And we pretty much rode all the rides...except for the kiddie ones in Camp Snoopy. We even took time the second day to walk over and check out the life sized replica of Independence Hall across the road from Knott's. It was complete with a replica Liberty Bell. It was very cool. 

One of my favorite roller coasters was Jaguar, which had this cool temple. I also really liked Ghost Rider, which we road twice...once during the day and as our last right at night. 

We explored all of the Ghost Town area of the park, including the saloon. We were the only ones in there on Thursday. We ordered sarsaparillas and were surprised with they started playing the piano and had live singing just for us! Laura got a little shout out when I told them it was her birthday.  

On Thursday, we also tried the famous chicken dinner place. It was yummy. 

We rode in the stagecoach and also on the train, where they had a train robbery. A goofy one, but a robbery none the less. 

Laura really wanted pics of us on the coasters, and I looked like I was in pain for most of them. Haha

In fiesta village, they have little dioramas of all the California missions. I really wanted to find the San Luis Rey mission, which is where Jacob and I took our wedding photos after being sealed in the San Diego temple. We looked and looked and didn't find it until almost the end of the day. Boom! 

 I think Laura had a fun 40th! It was definitely an adventure for me! Here's to making more memories!