Adventuring // OC Great Park

Three years at GOC and I had never been to a Fall Retreat. Freshmen year, we didn't know about it. Sophomore year, I decided to be a Move-In Assistant instead. Junior year, Shellie & I were getting used to apartmenting.

This year, there really wasn't a reason not to join everyone at retreat.

So I went.

Evelyn was kind enough to ask if I wanted a ride there and back in her car, since she was thinking of going adventuring before and after retreat. But, of course! I'm always down to adventure!

Since I had work Friday until 1pm, Evelyn & the three other girls in her car {Erica, Ivy, & Mickeyla} picked me up from there & off we went. I was so surprised {and very thankful} that Mickeyla & Evelyn had made me lunch-- completely unexpected & I was quite amazed at their generosity.

We chattered in the car and just kept driving {traffic wasn't too bad} until we saw this large orange balloon in the distance and the girls got really excited.

I was confused.

Apparently, in the anticipation and excitement of going to retreat, everyone forgot to tell me that we were stopping off at Orange County Great Park to ride an air balloon. Oops.

But it was all okay. These are the kind of surprises no one minds. *grins* More adventure!

Evelyn & Mickeyla.

Erica & Ivy.

The balloon was pretty massive. And so round and orange you really couldn't take your eyes off it-- totally attention-grabbing.

As you can tell, it was also really fun to take pictures of it.

It rises 400 feet up into the air as you stand in that circular cage base visible in the photo above.

It's gentle, gradual, and reallyreally calming.

We had the balloon all to ourselves and while there wasn't much to see yet {the OC Great Park is still technically being built, so there's just a lot of construction and dirt patches}, we all would go back and ride it again in a heartbeat.

It's free and open to the public, by the way, so you should totally check it out.

There's also a carousel there, right next to the balloon.

None of us had ridden a carousel in ages.

Was it weird that we were really excited?

And highly amused that they made us put on the seatbelt thing just like all the little ones?

Yeah... we're definitely getting older if we're documenting a carousel ride like it's the last time we'll ever ride one.

*clickclickclick*

The lights...

... the horses...

... the pigs!

{Just kidding. That last picture was for my mom. She collects pig paraphernalia. Hi, Mom!}

The kiddie playground a little farther away had a sprinkler system that sprayed a fine mist overhead to keep people cool. And since we were really warm, we gravitated there just like...

... these guys!

Don't freak out too much. They're fake and built into the rock formation as an interesting play structure feature. Look almost completely realistic though. Twas impressive.

This bike rack sculpture thing was right next to the parking lot. It must have been a field trip day because there was a group of kids taking pictures like this on the metal bike rack. Once we saw that, we knew we too must try that out.

Tada!

I must say, that was an excellent start to an even more excellent weekend.

Oh! And before I forget!

As we were leaving the park with all the car windows open and trying to find the exit, we {the girls sitting in the back: Ivy, Mickeyla, and I} saw Evelyn & Erica flinch hard away from the front window like they were bracing themselves to hit something. After quick queries of 'WHAT? WHATWHATWHAT?', we realized that there was a bee climbing around on Ivy's backpack inside the car & that took our attention away right quick, it did. Mickey's quick-reflex ninja skills had her shoving the backpack partway out the window and smacking it to try to get the bee off before the rest of us had time to draw enough breath to squeal 'BEE!'

Turns out, our car drove straight into a swarm of bees that had been hanging out in the middle of the road. It took another bee-in-the-car experience and more Mickey reflexes before we were able to laugh it off nervously and thank God no one was stung or anything.

There's never a dull moment with these girls.