Our California Family Vacation

This post is sponsored by Visit California. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

It’s been just over a week since we got home from one of our favorite trips we’ve ever taken: a week in California! We want to give a huge thank you to Visit California who brought our family our to the Golden State and showed us the best time ever. They put together such a fun and exciting trip for us, one that I know none of us will ever forget.

This was our family’s first true California vacation. We visited back in January, but we were only there a day and a half, and didn’t get to explore and experience the magic of the state. This time, though, we were there for five days and got to soak it all in. We rented a car (a minivan! all five of us absolutely loved it!!) and drove everywhere we went, which is also a first for us on any sponsored trip, as we usually take Ubers everywhere. It was so fun feeling like we lived there for a week.

We started out in Los Angeles, a city I’ve always wanted to visit. PJ went when he was 20 and said it’s changed a lot since then. It was so incredible to see all these places in person that we’ve only ever seen on TV. The Hollywood sign! Sunset Blvd! The Urban Lights!!! So many iconic sites to see and we tried to take in as many as possible.

After L.A. we drove to Pismo Beach for two days, which was a much slower pace. We’re used to living in a small town back at home, so this felt much more like our speed. We loved everywhere we visited and had a hard time picking our favorite. We loved it all!

So without further ado, here’s what we did on our trip, starting with L.A. (you can also see what we did in LA in video form here)

Los Angeles:

Where we stayed

The Garland Hotel

The Garland Hotel was this really cool, retro-inspired hotel that felt very 70’s and very quintessential California. The entire place was such a vibe, from the fireplace in the lobby, to the colors used throughout the rooms, to the incredible restaurant.

Our room had a balcony that had a beautiful view of the city.

When we arrived, the hotel had the sweetest little welcome basket in our room filled with goodies and fun things for the kids. How lovely is that?

When we got back to our room on the first night, the hotel had a bottle of rosé, cookies, and milk waiting on us! The entire time we were there we felt so special and it was all thanks to the incredible hotel staff.

A funny thing happened on the last morning of our stay: we had two rooms connected by doors, one for us and one for the kids. We were all in the kids room getting them dressed to leave, except Riah, who came in to join us and accidentally closed the door leading to our room. If you’re familiar with connecting hotel doors, they only have doorknobs on one sid3, so we were suddenly locked in the kids room without a key to ours (!) because it was on the desk in our room. The worst part is, I had just gotten out of the shower and was only in my towel. I called the front desk and they had a technician come and open it in a matter of minutes.

Thank goodness we woke up earlier than we had to that morning.

Where we ate

Breakfast

The Front Yard, the restaurant at the hotel. It was so yummy and so convenient since it was connected to the hotel. I ordered Eggs Benedict and PJ got a breakfast burrito and they both hit the spot.

We also had dinner there the fist night! I had the tagliatelle bolognese and PJ ordered the filet mignon, and both were delicious. The atmosphere is equally as lovely as the food. Can’t recommend this place enough.

Lunch

The Original Farmers Market. We made a short drive from the hotel to this incredible farmers market that had every type of food you could want. We had fun walking around checking out all the vendors and restaurants and finally narrowed down what we wanted, though I admit, it was difficult to do so (so many choices!).

I got a delicious falafel with baklava for dessert (at Moishe’s), while PJ ordered chicken and the kids got pizza.

For dessert we got donuts and ice cream and they were both outstanding. When in L.A.!

Dinner

We ate at the fabulous L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele.

Everything from the style of the restaurant (moody, chic, cozy) to the pizza was amazing. There’s nothing like eating a freshly made pizza by a fire while sipping on wine.

I felt like we were truly living the laid back, cool California lifestyle for a few hours, haha. The waiters were so kind and accommodating to our kids as well. Couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

What we did

Our first full day in LA started at The La Brea Tar Pits, which is an incredible museum showcasing all of the fossils found in various tar pits on site. Basically, Ice Age animals would get stuck in tar pits (tar pits are exactly what they sound like: a pit of tar that is hot and bubbly and sticky) and die, either from starvation or other predators attacking them while they’re vulnerable, and over a hundred years ago, they started to discover them and they’re all available to see at the museum.

The kids loved it, especially Allan, our oldest, who is obsessed with dinosaurs and all things fossil-related.

The museum has a huge dire wolf skull collection and they’re displayed in front of this brightly lit orange wall, which makes for a pretty striking visual.

After that, we walked over to Urban Light, but you probably know them better by what they look like rather than what they’re called.

Remember this scene with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher from No Strings Attached (one of the first movies PJ and I saw together in theaters!)?

Urban Light is a large-scale assemblage sculpture by Chris Burden and is “Composed of 202 street lamps arranged in a near grid. The lamps mostly came from the streets of Southern California, including Hollywood, Glendale, and Anaheim, with some from Portland, Oregon. There are 16 different streetlight models represented,” according to LACMA’s Director’s Circle. So fascinating!

One of the coolest things we did in LA was the Warner Bros. Studio Tour. I can’t tell you how incredible it was to see these iconic sets from all your favorite TV shows and movies in real life.

Hollywood has a way of making things look and feel so real that you would never even think it was a set on a backlot, but it almost always is, and it’s almost always shot here at Warner Bros. (or other studios in the area).

Recognize this gazebo from your favorite late 90’s/early 2000’s show?

And how about this famous orange couch and fountain?

The facade of this building has been sued for many things over the years, but we recognized it as The Alibi Room, the bar from one of our favorite TV shows Shameless.

The exterior of the Fuller House home:

This backlot has been used in shows like Gilmore Girls and Pretty Little Liars. Doesn’t it look so real? Most of the time there’s nothing actually inside the buildings, as they’re only a few feet deep, but a few of them are real working sets on the inside that you’re able to walk in and out of.

We stayed in the trolley the whole time on our tour, though.

The exterior of the school from one of my favorite new shows, Abbott Elementary!!!! If you remember the school looking taller in the opening credits, that’s because it is. They added the top portion of the building in post-production with CGI. So cool!

And while this looks like a long hallway through the green double doors, it’s actually just a giant poster.

The famous WB water tower:

This is the largest sound stage on their lot:

Every stage had a plaque on the front of it listing all of the notable films and TV shows that had been filmed there.

We got to see the real costumes worn by the actors from movies like Selena, Space Jam, Crazy Rich Asians, Elvis, and so many DC movies (and Game of Thrones!!).

This is the costume worn by Zoe Kravitz in The Batman. I don’t think we realized how small she actually is!

Fun fact: PJ is a huge Friends fan and has seen every episode. I, meanwhile, have never even seen one episode. Nonetheless, I recognize all the sets, which made seeing the actual Central Perk set really, really fun.

The end of the tour featured a big Harry Potter exhibit, which we all absolutely loved. Everything felt so real and like you were actually inside the walls of Hogwarts learning potions and Herbology.

The cupboard under the stairs, which we all agreed looked and felt a little bigger than we always imagined it. Harry didn’t have it that bad!!! (kidding)

The kids each got sorted by the Sorting Hat. Allan got Gryffindoor, while the other two appropriately got put into Slytherin, hahaha.

Universal Studios Hollywood

Our second full day in Los Angeles was spent at Universal Studios Hollywood! We have always wanted to go to U.S.H. after seeing things like Harry Potter World all over social media and hearing about the brand new Super Nintendo World.

We got there first thing in the morning as soon as they opened and immediately went to Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, the newest ride there. Tip: head to that ride first as the queue quickly fills up. It was the first place we went and we still waited almost an hour and a half to ride it. The lines reportedly get up to four hours long throughout the day, so make sure you check that one out first!

By far our favorite place in Universal Studios was the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I started reading the Harry Potter books in 3rd grade and for a long time, they and the movies were a huge part of my life. Seeing all of the things I read about as a kid in real life truly was magical in every sense. They did an amazing job of making you feel like you were actually in Hogsmeade with the set design and the various buildings and structures and experiences.

Especially eating at The Three Broomsticks and drinking butter beer!! It was so sweet and rich that we all split it, and next time I will plan to try it in frozen form, but overall it tasted exactly how I always imagined. And the food was really yummy and actually pretty reasonably priced, by the way. That’s where we ended up eating lunch and none of us had any complaints!

We went to a little skit inside Olivander’s wand shop and Allan was picked to participate!! He got to try out different wands until he found the one that suited him, and we decided to buy it when it was over.

The cool thing is when you go up to some of the store windows and point your wand directly at them, magic starts happening inside!

Another fun ride attraction was the Universal Studio Tour! Have you ever been?

You load up in these trolleys (we were in the first car in the very front seat behind the tour guide!) and they take you all through different, real sets where movies and TV shows are shot on. We saw where The Good Place was filmed and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, among so many others.

There are also various rides built into the tour. Yes, RIDES.

One minute you’re coasting through the wreckage of the Boeing 747 from Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (above), and the next you’re being thrown around by King Kong himself and then surviving a flooded tunnel without getting too wet. It was incredible.

The boys were absolutely terrified of the Psycho Bates Motel section and the Jaws part of the tour. In Jaws, a dock catches on fire and then Jaws himself comes up out of the water and scares everyone in the trolleys. So thrilling!

After the tour, we met a real Troll, which is Riah’s absolute favorite movie ever.

We ended the day by eating at The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen, which was just as cool as the name sounds.

I ordered the fettuccine Alfredo with grilled chicken, while PJ got a delicious chicken salad. The kids got a yummy flatbread pizza, and then for dessert we ordered one of their famous milkshakes and bread pudding. Look at how delicious!!!

By Wednesday morning, we were packing up and hitting the road for Pismo Beach. Before we left L.A. for good, though, we needed to do something we had been looking forward to for five years.

We were finally, finally, finally going to meet our manager.

I feel like a lot of people don’t know that we have a talent manager and assistant that helps us with the business side of social media, but we’ve had one for the last five years and we love them dearly. Maybe one day we’ll go into the logistics of being a full-time content creator, but basically we’ve been working with Alix for so long over phone calls, emails, texts, and every other form of virtual communication, but we’ve never actually met her in real life. So crazy!

So we knew we couldn’t leave the city without a visit to our management company’s office. We took the scenic route to DBA’s offices and when we walked in, we all ran into each other’s arms, trying our hardest not to scream our heads off. It was so good to meet her in person!!

She is just as lovely in real life as we thought she would be, and so is her assistant manager, Mack. We talk to both of them every single day, so it felt natural to sit back and relax and talk about life in general.

Also, how gorgeous and chic are DBA’s offices? The view was incredible! And they were so kind to the kids, giving them snacks and drinks and giving us all a tour of the space. It was the perfect way to end our time in L.A.

After that, we hopped in the minivan and made the 3 1/2 hour drive from L.A. to Pismo Beach. The ride was breathtakingly beautiful, with the golden coast to our left and nothing but fields and vineyards to the right. We stopped halfway for lunch in Santa Barbara, which was just as picture-perfect as I had always heard.

We ate at The Shoreline Cafe, and I highly recommend it!! Look at the gorgeous view of the ocean right behind our table:

You can read our more in-depth post about it here.

After lunch, we still had an hour and a half to go, so we hit the road. When we finally got to Pismo Beach, our time there officially began. So here is where we stayed, what we ate, and what we did in Pismo Beach. You can also see the video version of our time in Pismo here.

Pismo Beach:

Where we stayed

We checked into The Dolphin Bay Resort & Spa, which was just as beautiful as it sounds. Our place was huge, with a kitchen, dining and breakfast nook area, large living room, two huge bedrooms and two huge bathrooms. Everything was so crisp and clean and truly felt like a vacation.

The pool was astronomically big and heated, and the kids had fun playing in it and the hot tub. The weather was so chilly and windy the entire time we were in California, so it felt nice to relax in the hot tub for a bit.

The Dolphin Bay Resort is more or less on the side of a cliff, so it has these incredible views of the ocean.

I kept looking around, in every direction, and thinking this place feels like a dream. There was so much beauty everywhere you looked that it was hard to believe it was real.

We’ve never been to a place like Pismo Beach. You have to remember that we’re used to a different kind of beauty here down south: mountains and rivers (which we love!). Out in CA, it was such a breath of fresh air to experience natural beauty in such different forms like the ocean and vineyards.

My boys:

We took photos during sunset on our way to dinner. As you can tell, I couldn’t stop snapping pictures! Everything was just so beautiful!

I love how Riah and Anna are making the same expression in this picture.

Where we ate

The first night in Pismo Beach, we had dinner at The Dolphin Bay Resort’s restaurant, Lido.

The atmosphere was gorgeous and the food was so good. I ordered a pasta dish while PJ got the steak, and for dessert, they surprised us with strawberry shortcake!! How sweet is that? They wrote “happy anniversary” since it was our family’s first official California trip. So cute!!

For breakfast, we made the short drive to Surfside Donuts.

We each got a different donut and they were SO YUMMY. Highly recommend this place. And the service was great, too! The owner (I assume she was the owner by the way she talked about the place) served us and made the friendliest small talk about CA, TN, and our first time being in Pismo.

For lunch we ate at Zorro’s Cafe & Cantina, which is a Mexican restaurant in downtown Pismo Beach. My quesadilla was delish, and so was PJ’s salad. They have this homemade hot sauce that we put on everything because it was so good and we sooooo wished we could have taken home with us (we didn’t check any bags).

We had plans to go to dinner at Splash Cafe, which is famous for its clam chowder, but the rain started coming down so hard on our last night that we didn’t want to be out too long in it.

Instead of going to a restaurant, we drove 0.2 miles from our hotel to Depalo and Sons, which is the super cute little market filled with cheese and wine and snacks and baked goods and lots of yummy homemade food.

I told PJ if we lived in Pismo Beach, I would shop there every night for snacks and dinner. It was my kind of place!!

We got mushroom ravioli and a red pasta sauce and various different cakes for dessert. It was a smorgasbord for dinner, which might just be my favorite kind of meal.

What we did

Our first night in Pismo Beach was spent at the previously mentioned pool and the hot tub. We wanted to do nothing but relax, so that’s just what we did!

After breakfast at Surfside Donuts, we went horseback riding through a Pismo Preserve with Central Coast Trailrides!!

I honestly never in my life expected to go horseback riding through the California countryside with gorgeous views of the ocean, but life has a way of surprising you sometimes.

PJ was the only one in our family who had ridden a horse before, having grown up on a farm. He also worked at a summer camp for 8 years and used to help out at the horse riding area of the camp teaching others how to ride.

The owners/instructors were beyond kind and so sweet with the kids. They were patient with all of us and so gentle, taking the time to explain everything about the horses and how to ride them. We swapped stories about parenting and life in Tennessee vs California. They were incredible, and if you’re in the Pismo Beach area, you absolutely need to take two hours out of your day and go horseback riding with Central Coast Trailrides.

We were joined on the ride by a representative from the Pismo Preserve. They told us all about the history of the preserve and how the community of Pismo Beach fought to save it 10 years ago.

It was so fascinating and honestly inspiring how they all came together to save this gorgeous piece of land from being developed. Their website describes it like this:

At 880 acres, the Pismo Preserve offers truly exceptional and diverse recreational opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts. Visitors will enjoy over 11 miles of trail traversing serene oak woodlands and coastal ridgelines with stunning panoramic vistas of the Pacific Ocean stretching from the Irish Hills to Point Sal.

My horse was named Bruno (born and named before Encanto came out!) and PJ’s was Randy.

If I’m being honest, I was a little nervous to get up on a horse for the firs time. We’ve been watching a lot of Yellowstone and 1883, both involving a lot of horse riding, and both involving a lot of people falling off horses and getting hurt. Plus, you’re up SO high! Have you ever ridden a horse before? It’s nerve-wracking at first!

But after about five minutes of riding, my mind was at ease and I felt comfortable. It was so cute to see the kids way up high riding the horses, especially Anna, who looked so small compared to her big horse. They all handled it like champs and had so much fun.

At the end of the ride, the instructors told us how great our kids did, informing us they do rides with so many kids and a lot of them mess with the horses or fall asleep while riding or pour their water bottles on the horses heads (!), but that our kids were a joy to ride with. Proud parent moment!!!

After horseback riding, we made our way to The Chapman Estate, which is this incredible house and property situated on an actual cliff in Pismo Beach with gorgeous views of the ocean right outside its windows.

“The Chapman Estate, located at 1243 Ocean Boulevard in Shell Beach, Calif., has been an integral part of the Shell Beach community since Clifford Chapman purchased the property in 1962. He and Don Shidler, Chapman’s partner of almost 50 years, collected art and treasures from around the world that are now displayed in the house and on the grounds. They hosted numerous parties and opened the Estate for non-profit events.”

We were given a private tour by members of the foundation who told us all about the history of the house and its previous owner, Cliff Chapman. He and his partner Don lived there for almost 50 years, and as we walked through the halls and rooms of the estate, it was clear they shared a beautiful life together.

Almost all of their belongings are just as they left them, even though it’s been many years since they lived there (Cliff passed in 2013 and Don followed a few years later).

The grounds feature a windmill built in 1937 that had a large pump which pumped seawater directly into the pool. How cool is that?

There were gardens and even a fish pond (the kids loved that), along with trails and passageways and a beautiful back deck that felt like you were floating above the ocean. It was such a magical place. I can’t imagine actually living there. I would never want to leave.

Look at the views from the huge picture window in the house:

We had plans to explore a few more places in Pismo, but later that day the rain came, and it never stopped, so we decided to stay in and get food from Depalo and Sons and relax inside until our flight the next day. After the busy, nonstop week we had, we were actually a little grateful for the downtime.

Our trip to California was a dream come true, one that I don’t think we ever could have imagined would be so magical and fun. I can’t tell you what it means to us to have our kids experience an area of the country that we didn’t get to travel to until we were adults. I hope they keep these precious memories with them forever and cherish them always like we will.

A kind woman offered to take our photo in the airport before flying home

Once again, we want to give a huge thank you to Visit California for bringing our family out and showing us the beauty of that state. We can’t wait to go back!!