California Vacation

Our good friends Wes and Diya, from dental school at UCLA, were getting married this past weekend. We decided to jump at the opportunity to visit Southern California, and to see them get married of course! Our first stop was in San Diego to visit Grandpa and Grandma Taylor. The girls only spent a day there, but were very sad to leave! Of course we remembered to grab an ice cream bar from the garage freezer on the way out. :)












We were received in true Taylor style, with a huge breakfast Thursday morning and a day full of games.



Our next stop was in Murrieta, to visit Nate and Amy and family. The kids all had a grand time playing with each other.


Next we visited Roger and Janet in Irvine. As soon as 14 month old Braden saw Juli, he immediately became fond of her and wanted only her to hold him. Juli was especially looking forward to staying in Irvine because it meant eating out at a REAL Chinese restaurant! She's been looking forward to it for over a year now. I guess Columbus just doesn't have the real Chinese food to satisfy her cravings!!!


On Saturday we dropped the girls off at Jared and Debi's nice apartment at the UCLA Married Student Housing. What great memories we had at those apartments! Jared and Debi are naturals with the girls, they didn't even notice us leaving for the day. Even a week later, all Nicole still talks about (even in her prayers) is her fun filled day with Uncle Jared and Aunt Debi.


And for the real purpose of our trip - the wedding. Saturday afternoon we had a Vietnamese luncheon with the Hill family and friends. It was at the VIP Harbor Seafood restaurant, and it was a delicious 10 course meal. It was nice to see a lot of old friends, especially friends from dental school. That night we attended the Sangeet Dinner and Dance for Diya's family. We all attended this celebration and had a great time. Here is Wes and Diya enjoying the professional dancers at the Sangeet.

Half of the room was decorated in Indian style with floor tables and pillows. There was a table in the corner filled with bracelets for all attending women to wear. All the girls at the Sangeet got Indian tattoos, called henna. I guess they last a few weeks. Of course within a few minutes Nicki had smeared it all over her other foot, my dress pants, etc... but it was still fun.


Kaitie got in a few dances with Diya. Here they are on the dance floor, with Kaitie trying her new hybrid dance consisting of a little ballet, tap, and Indian dancing.

Nicki had to get her groove on too. As you can tell in this picture, she was all over the place as she attempted to keep up the Indian hip hop music.


By dinnertime (about 10 PM), the girls were so tired they crawled into a corner and fell asleep. Diya's dad was nice enough to bring them some pillows to sleep on. Sorry about the drool!


Sunday, we went to the wedding near Malibu. It was at a country club off the PCH, and it was beautiful! It was a Hindu ceremony, with the LDS bishop performing the ring ceremony at the end.

Here is the Hindu priest, performing the ceremony in both English and Sanskrit, which is the language most holy Hindu ceremonies are performed in. This entire weekend was an incredible cultural experience. We were able to see things we will probably never get to see again. Thanks Wes and Diya for inviting us!




















Finally, we spent the evening with friends at the dinner to celebrate their marriage. We were able to catch up on old times with good friends. Here we are with our great dental school friends, John and Kaylene Wakeman.




Us with our other good friends, Tyler and Brooke.




































We couldn't be in LA without eating at our all-time favorite restaurant, Kabuki's. It is a Japanese restaurant with great food. We always order the "boat," which comes on a cool wooden boat. It has chicken teriyaki, beef rib eyelets, salad, tempura, sushi, and more on it.













Our last day in California was spent visiting old friends at the UCLA School of Dentistry and walking on the Venice beach.















We had to finish our trip off with a tasty dinner at C&O's, where the garlic bread rolls are incredibly tasty.














We loved our week in sunny Southern California. When Kaitie began our trip asking, "Are those real palm trees," we knew that we had to make our trips to So Cal more frequent!