Santa Monica Pier

Kaleb and I always go to the Santa Monica whenever we want to go to the beach. This time, instead of going to play on the beach we wanted to go to the pier. Parking is such a hassle anywhere in Los Angeles. We Hate It! Before we leave to go someone Kaleb is really good about looking up where to park. So instead of paying $12 for parking, Kaleb found a parking structure a couple blocks away that is free parking for an hour. We just had to walk the distance which we really don't mind.  

People literally wait in lines forever to pay $12 just to be a little closer to the beach. It is ridiculous.

The weather was absolutely perfect, as always. There were a lot of people and a lot of entertainers, some we chuckled at and some we watched out of amusement. 

We walked to the end of the pier fist and enjoyed the ocean view. 

A lot of people were wind surfing which is way fun to watch!

We tried to take selfies but they weren't working out. Luckily a nice guy offered to take a picture for us.

After the pier we walked on a pathway along the beach. We walked right passed "Muscle Beach" where there are a lot of people doing cool balancing tricks and showing off their strength. Kaleb was a little disappointed because he thought that there were going to be these huge guys lifting ginormous weights, unfortunately there weren't any of those. But it was still fun to watch. 

Passed Muscle Beach there were lots of tight rope walkers. Back in high school I was able to try out tight rope walking on a date. It is not easy at all. I couldn't even stand up on the rope, I barely could even with two people on either side of me. So I knew that these people had practiced a lot to do what they do.

We watched this guy for a while. It was a really long rope and he was doing pretty good! 

There were a lot of dancers and singers along the path. Some of them good.... some of them not so great....

Lots of people were biking or roller skating. Kaleb and I want to go back and rent some bikes to ride down the path. There were also a lot of people eating ice cream, I really wanted some but it was so darn expensive.

We went quite a ways when we decided it was time to head back. We were pretty tired but finally made it back to parking and drove home. 

Since I didn't get any ice cream Kaleb and I went and got some at the grocery store to enjoy at home. 

It was such a fun day and I am so glad we can find things like this to do!

May 18

Juice

Kaleb and I aren't big water drinkers. We would much rather have juice, soda or crystal lite packets. With our small fridge, though, we don't have enough room for a juice container. So instead we buy Juice Boxes!!! They are the best! I feel like a little kid again.

Because they are a little more expensive Kaleb told me that we should limit to one juice box a day. I was very sad but agreed that that would be best. Every once in a while I would joke to ask for an extra juice box, or ask him if he would let me have his for the day. Sometimes he would be very generous and let me have a sip of his.

One day I had an upset stomach and needed some extra sugar. Instead of getting another juice box I made my own "juice". I just put some oranges in water. It was alright, but not as good as a juice box! 

When Kaleb got home he was laughing so hard at my creation. I hadn't intended to make it to "replace" the juice, just to have a flavored drink. 

Even though we don't have a lot of money, it is fun to get creative and find cheaper ways to do things!

May 17

Wedding Day!

May 1-3
Kim and Tyler's wedding day was just a month after we moved to California. It actually worked out great! That way we could go back to Utah and take another car load of our stuff back. 

The wedding was on a Friday, Kaleb had school on Thursday so we left after he got back. We arrived in Utah around 11:00 and stayed the night at Kaleb's mom's house. We had to wake up super early to get to the temple on time, which we did... barely!

The ceremony was very sweet, short and to the point. I loved it. They were so so happy! Both of them smiling from ear to ear the whole time, with my dad crying on the side. HA!

Tyler is extremely strong!

Kim chose the same photographer that we used for our wedding. David Jaffa. He is really a great! 

Funny Story: When we were waiting for Kim and Tyler to come out of the temple, David asked us if there were any divorces in the family that he needed to know about (for photography purposes). Kaleb replies with, "Yeah, my parents are divorced". It was hilarious! We both busted up laughing and poor Kaleb couldn't figure out why. I explained what he was meaning, it felt great to not be the blonde one of the day.

It was blistering hot outside!! California 75 degrees is completely different then Idaho 75 degrees. But I would rather have it hot then raining or snowing so I wasn't complaining too much.

Brittany has a client that made a cardboard cutout of K.C. It turned out really well! It looks just like him!

We had a nice luncheon in Idaho Falls with immediate family and close friends. Stockton and Jud tried to fight for camera time, it was pretty hilarious.

After the luncheon, Kaleb and I went to my parents house to just rest before the reception. I knew if I sat down I would fall asleep so instead I played with Stockton. We rode the four wheeler and walked over to the neighbors to see the horsy horsys. 

It was hilarious to see him interact with the animals. He even got to take an egg home from the chickens. He was super careful with it until he broke it on the wagon on the way home. 

The reception was beautiful. It looked just like Kimberlee wanted. Kaleb and I had fun decorating their car for them with balloons and streamers. We had help from the Wheeler family and Corine. They were able to get in the car and go crazy with the streamers! 

It ended up being really nice to see the family again and the wedding was great! 

Kaleb and I stayed the night at my parents Friday night and headed back to Utah to spend some time with Kaleb's family. Kaleb's dad had free movie tickets to Spider Man 2, Brittany was going to give me a hair cut and I had to stop at Cameo to get some things signed so we had to be very strict on time. Of course when you have to be careful with your time, that is when things go wrong....
Our drivers side window had been giving us problems, you have to hold your mouth just right in order to get it to roll back up. Every time it would get harder and harder and we kept saying we won't roll it down any more but we always did. Today was the day that it decided to no longer work and it wouldn't roll up. We heard a loud snap and knew that it was the end of the window. Luckily we were pulling into Melanie's house so we were able to try and fix it. We ended up taking the control panel apart and found the broken piece. It took us a while to do it and Kaleb was getting frustrated with time. Thank goodness for Youtube and the many videos it has, we were able to get it to roll up. Though, it was completely broken and we really couldn't roll it down any more.
Even with the delay we were able to make the movie, it was great! After, we went to Melanie's and stayed the night.
The next morning we woke up early and headed back home. Once we hit the California border, traffic became stop and go. It was terrible!
Even though it was a great weekend I was so glad to be home to our tiny apartment!

Escondido Falls

April 26

We love to hike! We are constantly looking up more hiking trails to explore. The weekend of April 26, Escondido Fall in Malibu was the destination. All the reviews online were great!

I looked up the map and thought that I could just direct Kaleb myself. I figured that Santa Monica Boulevard would be the fastest. Boy was I wrong! It took forever! There were so many stop lights and pedestrians. It took quite awhile but we finally arrived.

We had to walk through a neighborhood to get to the trail. The houses were huge! They all had a private pool, some had tennis courts and some basketball courts. It was pretty awesome. There was also a very nice view of the ocean along the way.

The trail was really green and gorgeous! 

The first part of the hike is to a little waterfall, and then you can choose to continue onto a larger waterfall if you are up for the challenge. 

This is the smaller waterfall. It was pretty dried up and smelt a little funny so we decided to continue onto the larger waterfall.

 It was incredibly steep and dirty! But super fun! 

There were lots of ropes to climb the steeper parts which made it extremely adventurous.

The trail wasn't marked very well so we only had a view of the second waterfall but didn't actually make it there. 

There were a lot of girls with their boyfriends on the hike. Most of them just complained about getting their shoes dirty, or that they were hot and sweaty. It was pretty funny.

It definitely became one my favorite hikes. I want to be able to do it again when we aren't in so much of a drought.

The next day we went on another short hike, we were so sore from the day before that we didn't make it too far. It felt so great to get out and about yet again.

Hollywood Reservoir

Kaleb had started school the Monday after we moved in, April 7. He goes to school M-F from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm and stays after until around 3:30 to get a few lab hours in. I remember when he got home after his first day of school, he was so incredibly happy! This is when I KNEW that we did the right thing moving out here. He is making his dream a reality. I am so blessed to have a husband that is working so hard to get what he wants. 

The first few days of school, he would come home and tell me, "I made a new friend today", it was hilarious! He was like a kid going to kindergarten. I love it. There were also the explanations of what they learned that day and I would pretend that I knew what he was talking about. I love hearing him talk about school. 

Around this time I had applied to 5 jobs a day. Literally! Some applications would take me over an hour to fill out. I had only heard back from a few places and I was getting pretty nervous that I was not going to get a job in time and we would have to move back to Utah. Kaleb always reassured me and finally I got an interview at Contemporary Catering. Kaleb had always did the driving and I was the navigator. The first time I had to drive in California I was on my own. It wasn't too bad, I kept my GPS in my lap and just listened to it hoping that I could figure out my lefts and rights fast enough. I got there in plenty of time and had a great interview. The next day they emailed me with the great news that I got the job! They told me that I would get to pick what shifts I wanted to take, which would work out great so I could get another job. I wouldn't start until the end of April so I still applied to jobs and sat at home, too scared to go out on my own.

Kaleb knew that I got bored at home, he was awesome at making sure I got out of the house at least once or twice a week.

On April 21, he came home and said that we were going to the Hollywood Reservoir. I was super lazy and didn't really want to go any where but he wouldn't let down, so I got up and got ready. I am so glad he convinced me. 

The drive was Crazy, it wasn't on a common road and we had to drive through neighborhoods to get there. In Hollywood there are a lot of hills that have houses all over them, the roads, though, are extremely curvy and usually fit only one car so you have to drive really slow and hope that there isn't a car coming the other direction around the corner. After a short drive 10 minute drive we arrived at our destination.

It was BEAUTIFUL!

It had a great view of the city and the Hollywood Sign.

There was a large dam that you walked over and a nice paved path to walk along the reservoir. You couldn't get down to the water because they didn't want it to get contaminated, since, duh, it is a reservoir. 

The dam was decorated with cement dog heads! I couldn't get a picture of them because they were on the side and you had to lean way over to see them and I didn't want to drop my phone. But just imagine "awesome dog heads on the side of a giant dam". 

We didn't walk very far because there were a lot of bugs and Kaleb and I are a little out of shape. It felt good to get out of the house and walk around. 

We Got A Fridge!!

Before moving to California, Kaleb and I searched and searched for an apartment. We tried every website and app we could think of. Some apartments didn't have a kitchen, most were way to expensive, and then the location came into play. Finally we found one that was almost perfect. It was reasonably priced, close to Kaleb's school and was even in a safer neighborhood. The only problem was it didn't come with a fridge. 

We decided that we would just buy one off of Amazon so that we wouldn't have to worry about transporting and getting it to our apartment. Since we didn't have internet for a while, it took us some time to order one. We had to eat out quite a bit the first couple weeks. Some may think, "That is cool" or "Lucky you". The first few days were awesome but after a while I really wanted to have a home cooked meal. Plus it was more expensive, even if we tried to get cheap stuff.

We checked out a few close restaurants such as, The Melt. where they have delicious, over priced grilled cheese sandwiches; Mcdonalds, where the dollar menu is more than a dollar; and Kaleb's favorite, Taco Bell.

Fifteen days after we moved into our apartment our fridge arrived! (April 17)

It was a glorious day!

Since we are only going to be in our apartment for a year we bought a mini fridge. But it isn't just your ordinary mini fridge with a teeny tiny freezer, this was a Legit mini fridge with two doors. It is seriously the cutest fridge ever!

It works pretty well too! We do have to eat our food a little faster so it doesn't go bad, but there isn't much room so it's not too hard to accomplish. Milk usually goes bad before the expiration date so we have to keep an eye on it. But other than that it is an awesome fridge!

At first we thought that we would just sell it when we moved, but now we are thinking that we will keep it forever! The freezer is great so we can keep it in our master bedroom and store ice cream in it. Also delicious cold drinks and other yummy snacks. We will have to put it in a place where our future kids can't find it. We will be the best sneaky parents ever!! 

Abandoned LA Zoo

April 13

Kaleb and I Google searched "things to do in LA". We went through many sites and the Abandoned LA Zoo was on most of the suggestions so we decided we would check it out. The directions weren't very clear on how to get there so we headed in the general direction, parked and started walking. We headed up a path that a lot of people were coming down and it ended up being extremely creepy! Some of the fences that kept the animals in were falling down and there were lots of weird noises. I started to regret even thinking about coming here and wanted to turn around. Even Kaleb was a little spooked. We kept trudging on and eventually found a more common path which helped the adventure improve. 

The view from the path was incredible! 

There were many open cages right next to each other. I really wanted some awesome pictures so we put our brave faces on and got great results!

While walking around they had a sign posted about the zoo. It opened in 1912 and many of the structures were built in the 1930s. It was home to monkeys, tigers, lions, elephants and many other animals. They explained that the cages were no longer appropriate for the animals so they built a new zoo instead of spending more money on renovating the current one. It was closed in 1965.

It ended up being a great walk and not too creepy toward the end. There was an awesome rock structure that I wanted to get pictures next to but got distracted by a group of hippies. I'm not sure if that is really what they were. The "leader" passed around a jug filled with something, most likely alcohol, and explained to everyone that was in the circle how to drink it. She used phrases like: "As you take a sip feel it go down the back of your throat and to the tips of your toes" and "Notice how you feel when you take a sip". It was quite hilarious because they all looked high on something and tried really hard to do exactly as the lady said. We definitely realized that California is filled with all kinds of people. 

First Weekend In Hollywood

April 5, 2014

The first weekend in our new place was a tough one, mostly because we didn't have our internet hooked up and also we didn't have a fridge. We decided the best thing for us was to get out of our apartment and go exploring. There are so many things to do in LA it was definitely hard to choose what to do. It also gets very frustrating trying to google on a small smart phone. After searching for a while, we chose to visit some tide pools at Abalone Cove in San Pedro. 

The drive there was close to an hour but it was completely gorgeous! Once we spotted the ocean we both were extremely happy and couldn't wait to get there. 

We parked on top of a cliff and had a small hike down to the tide pools.

Both of us had been to tide pools before but for some reason we had it in our head that we were going to see some wicked awesome sea creatures, lots of starfish and maybe dolphins and whales out in the ocean. Of course, for anyone that has seen tide pools, this is not the case. 

This is what it looked like everywhere! We were so sad at the beginning! We just kind of walked around for a minute and even tried to get out farther into the ocean to see if there was more. We did a lot of rock hopping and a couple times we almost fell in. After a while we discovered that if you sit still in one place and just stare you actually can see small animals. We found lots of purple sea urchins and muscles which were kind of boring. The exciting things were the teeny tiny crabs and sea slugs! The crabs skittered around really fast and the slugs were just slow and ugly. Kaleb and I cheered the slug on for a while but it still moved at the same pace.

We continued to climb around for a little while trying to discover as much as we could.

My favorite is when Kaleb posed for a picture a wave came rushing up and splashed him! I wasn't able to get the wave but I got the after shock photo.

On our way back out I discovered my favorite sound! It is the rocks rolling back into the ocean after a wave. They aren't as clear in the video in real life, so if you get a chance you need to make sure you hear this sound at least once in your life.

We got a little lost trying to find our way back out but found a cool stair case in the process.

We got extremely hungry and decided we would go to Long Beach to find a place to eat. On our way there I realized that we were going to drive over this huge green bridge. However, we had some technical difficulties with the GPS and ended up missing the bridge. I was very disappointed but hopefully we will be able to drive over it another day. We found a little shopping center with a Wal Mart and small fast food restaurants. We ate at a locally owned place we have never heard of and it turned out to be really good. There were a lot of crazy people but they mostly just kept to themselves. One lady was talking to herself for quite a while, something about kids and disciplining them. It was quite hilarious On our way back to the car there was a sun glasses hut and we found Kaleb some pretty awesome sun glasses for only $10.

Even though we didn't get to see dolphins or whales the trip turned out amazing. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed the nice ocean fresh air. 

Keeping up with the Klinglers

As most of you know Kaleb and I recently moved to Hollywood, California so Kaleb could attend school for audio production. Since then, we have had so many crazy awesome experiences! I want to remember all of them and decided that a blog would be the perfect way. That way any family or friends that would like to keep up with us can as well.

Our lease in Draper ended at the end of March, but we couldn't move into our apartment in California until April 3. Friday, March 28 Kevin helped us move all of our big things into Melanie's garage. On Saturday, Kaleb and I went and finished moving out everything else, cleaned our apartment and said our goodbyes. 

On our last trip we barely had any room for me to fit in. It was either leave me behind or squeeze in.... 

We were so tired we just wanted to be done. It definitely wasn't the most comfortable but we made it safely to Melanie's house.

We stayed at her house over the weekend and even got to go to Logan to say goodbye to Todd and Brittany's family. It was so fun being able to spend time with Kaleb's family for a few days. 

Thursday, April 3 at 7:30 am

With our car packed full, with me safely buckled up in the passenger seat, we began our 10 hour drive to California. Luckily we had some nice scenery on the way out of Utah.

After a LONG drive we finally arrived in California! The weather was beautiful! We couldn't wait to be able to get moved in and relax.

We had contacted our apartment manager a few days before and she informed us that she would be home around 5:30 to have us sign the lease and give us our keys. We arrived at 5:00 and waited in anticipation to be able to move in.

Right before 5:30 the manager called us and asked if we had our first month payment. We figured that we could just pay with a personal check but apparently that wouldn't work. We needed to pay with cash or money order. We were new to the area and had no idea were to get a money order. Bank of America wouldn't print one for us because we weren't a member, Walgreen's didn't have them and 7 Eleven down the street wouldn't do them unless we had cash. We finally found a Walmart 6 miles away but since it was rush hour it would take us 30 minutes... 

Around 8:00 we finally had our money order and were on our way back when we got a call from our manager asking us if we were coming back. I was so angry but just explained as nicely as I could that we were on our way.

We got our lease signed, received our keys and went back to our car to start moving everything in. We waited patiently for the elevator but it was taking a very long time! There was a loud buzzing noise and it started to smell like smoke. The elevator doors slowly started to open, and in there was a very frustrated man with his bike. As he turned around to grab his bike the doors started to shut. He immediately tried to pry them open with his hands, struggling to win the battle. Unfortunately he lost and the doors shut rather loudly. Kaleb and I were unsure of what to do. He walked around the garage trying to find the stairs but had no luck. I called the apartment manager to let her know of the situation and she informed me that she would be right down. After the call ended the elevator doors opened and the man and the bike rushed out. Kaleb asked him where the stairs were, he replied, "it's broken" and quickly left. The doors remained open this time but there was more smoke. Seeing all of the smoke made us think twice of using the elevator. The manager arrived and told us we had to go to the front of the building and around to get to the stairs. Luckily we are on the second floor and didn't have many things. 

We were exhausted, hungry and thirsty once we were done. We hadn't eaten dinner and only had one Capri Sun, a few Teddy Grams and Slim Jims left from our trip. Since we already experienced LA traffic we didn't feel like leaving again. We pumped up our air mattress, shared the last of our snacks and fell asleep watching Transformers. 

It's a very small studio apartment but thankfully we don't have many things and won't be here for very long.

It was a crazy day, it took all of our strength, and there were many times that we felt like giving up and going back to Utah. Little did we know the amazing adventures we would have while living here.