CALIFORNIA!!!

We had the opportunity to take an 8-day vacation to California a couple weeks ago and boy did we have fun! O.k. actually 2 of those days were spent driving, and those parts weren't necessarily fun, but still......

We started planning this trip back in January and before we knew it practically all of Matthew's family had decided to join us. We stayed at the same hotel that his parents were at.....because they had graciously paid for it since we didn't get to go to Hawaii with the rest of the fam a couple years ago and have our hotel paid for. It was very nice of them! And then a couple of Matthew's brothers and their families came and they all stayed in a hotel close to Disneyland. Ours was about 15 minutes away. Here's a few details and highlights from our trip. All of the details might be boring for some of you....but keep in mind that my blog is my journal, so this is really more for me. But if you're interested in a long read, here you go:

Friday:
We left Friday night with plans to drive to Matthew's Uncle Charlie's in Henderson, Nevada (which is a little beyond the halfway point for the drive to California) and stay for the night. We planned to leave at 5, but didn't get away til about 6 and because of traveling with little kids, didn't get to Charlie's until about 2 in the morning. He was up and waiting for us. He's such a great host and such a funny guy. Everybody loves Uncle Charlie! The kids were all riled up once we got there and Peyton and Logan did not want to sleep. Logan was up until about 4 and Peyton was up til about 5. Peyton was sure on one and was actually kind of making me laugh. She was being such a goofball! It would have been funnier if we weren't going to be making a long drive the next day.


Saturday:
We had a few hours to kill because we couldn't check in to our hotel until 4. So Charlie made us his "famous" french toast and stuffed us with all sorts of other goodies, like ooey gooey cinnamon rolls. Oh my gosh, they were heaven! The kids got a kick out of all of Charlie's animals. AT his house he has three dogs, 2 cats and a bird. The bird talks and the kids thought she was hilarious saying things like, "Charlie ok?"

The drive wasn't too bad. Matthew had set up the car as a mobile-entertainment-spot. We had the DVD player hooked up with the Wii plugged into it as well. Plus, we had Matthew's Iphone and another Ipod for gaming. They were also plugged in so we didn't have to worry about the battery dying. We were good to go! Unfortunately, due to too many things plugged in, as soon as we parked at the hotel, we blew a fuse or something and all of the accessories no longer worked. Oops!!!

We were pretty much exhausted once we got there and didn't do a whole lot besides unpack and settle in to our new home away from home. It literally was. Each room had their own full kitchen with all of the dishes, pots and pans provided. They had just refurnished the rooms so they were really nice. Here's our home away from home:





For dinner we went to Boston Market. Now typically WHERE we eat is something that sounds dumb to mention, but not is this time because I LOVE Boston Market and miss them since we no longer have them here in Utah. Anyway, it was good eatin....practically a Thanksgiving feast!


Sunday:
We had the opportunity to go to a ward there in Costa Mesa. It's always cool to me to attend church outside of Utah. Even though the church is generically the "same" no matter where you are, it's still different. The people sitting right in front of us were visiting as well. They were from Arizona and it turned out they actually knew one of my friends sisters. It's a small world but it especially seems that way in the church! Coincidentally, the "It's A Small World" attraction at Disneyland was closed down during our visit for some reason, so making this connection was our only "Small World" experience. Oh yeah, plus we ran into these same people multiple times over the course of our visits to Disneyland and California Adventure.

That afternoon we made a trip down to Newport Beach which was only about 5 minutes away. The kids had a blast. It was their first official time "touching" the ocean. We were never able to make it down to the beach during our trip 2 years ago because they were all either too busy, it cost too much to get into, or we couldn't find parking. So it was really fun to finally take our kids to the ocean and actually let them play. It was too cold to wear swimsuits that day, but that didn't stop the kids from going as far as they could in their clothes. They were pretty wet and sandy by the time we were done, but it was all worth it!

Ember's such a little mother! Aren't they cute?

Monday:
Today we spent the day at Disneyland. I'll narrate the day through the pictures......

Here we are on the shuttle taking us to Disneyland. The kids were SOOO excited!!! O.k. we were too.

I love this picture of Peyton. It's as if she's looking at her daddy exclaiming, "I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!"

We always have to take a picture of the kids in front of the castle. Logan was fine at first, but then decided he needed a moment to sulk. So here's a picture where everyone is happy....and one with Logan in the background sulking. LOL

The Buzz Lightyear ride is one of our favorites. Here's the kids showing off their scores.

Here's the kids getting their glasses on to prepare for the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" 3D experience.

Disneyland is tough on little babies! ;)

Here's Ember and Kya waiting in line for Indiana Jones. They no longer had smiles on their faces AFTER the ride. Ha ha But it wasn't horrible enough to not go on it again, especially when favorite cousins were involved.

I LOVE this picture! I think it pretty much sums up how Kya felt about Splash Mountain.

A rare picture of me and my baby.....taken by me!

Here's a picture of the picture that gets taken as you're heading down the drop on Splash Mountain. Kya's face is precious! Matthew thinks she looks happy in it. Whatever! You can SEE the sheer terror in her eyes. I'm not a huge fan of Splash Mountain either because I HATE getting wet. So as you can see in this picture, I tried to remedy that. LOL

They had the Haunted Mansion redecorated inside and out to the theme of "The Nightmare Before Christmas". It was really cool. We'd never seen the movie, but now we want to.

This is a view from Tarzan's Treehouse. I've never been in it before so it was new to me. It's pretty cool, and pretty scary being up as high as you get. Just a note, this picture is not taken at the top.

It's unbelievable how all-out Disney goes to decorate for Halloween. It is amazing! I want to visit during another holiday next time. Maybe Christmas next year???

Tuesday:
Today turned out to be far different than planned. We had bought tickets and were planning on going to the Wild Animal Park. We were all very excited because we had never been there. We were planning on leaving an hour or so before lunchtime and pack lunches so that we could find a park near the WAP that we could eat at before going so that we wouldn't have to pay outrageous amounts of money to eat in the park. This plan was going to leave us about 4-5 hours at the park, which is a pretty decent amount of time for a place like that. So we packed up and headed out. We got about a half hour down the road before we came to a COMPLETE stop on the freeway! There were fires all over the valley that we had known about, but apparently one of them was so bad that they had shut down all access to the area.....which is where we needed to travel through to get to our destination. It would've been fine to reroute and take a little longer to get there HAD WE BEEN ABLE TO EXIT! May I remind you that we were at a DEAD STOP! I'd never seen anything like it. Peyton is usually o.k. in a car for relatively short trips (such as what this was supposed to be) as long as the car is moving. I don't know why it matters whether you're moving or not, but babies can always tell. So she was not happy and was screaming her guts out. We didn't have a bottle for her because all of the food was with my in-laws in their car which was a couple cars in front of us. Well, since we were at a dead stop I figured it was fine to go up and get one. I walked along the shoulder. By this time we had been stopped for over an hour. Walking along the shoulder gave me an idea. I suggested to Matthew that we just try to drive along the shoulder until we reached the exit. Sure, we might have gotten in trouble, but it was a chance I was willing to take. Matthew wasn't. Until he saw other people start to do the same thing. So we drove along until we could exit. And then coincidentally the cars began to move. But we knew that there were areas of the freeway that were still going to be closed so we would have had to exit anyway and reroute in order to get to our destination. We figured it out and if we did reroute it would take so long to get there that we'd only have about 2 hours once we got there, which wouldn't be worth it. I had called the place we got the tickets through and found out that we could get a refund. That made our decision that much easier. So we headed back to the hotel and let the kids swim in the hotel pool.....something they'd been wanting to do since we got there. All in all, it was a little frustrating, but what can you do?

Man, I love this kid! What a cutie!!

Wednesday:
Today was our California Adventure day. Matthew and I actually prefer CA to Disneyland. It has some of our favorite rides.....Soarin Over California (my all time favorite), Tower of Terror (I swear it was scarier than I remember though), and California Screamin (we didn't get to go on this a couple years ago because none of the kids were tall enough to go on it and Matthew and I didn't want to waste time waiting for each other. It is the BEST roller coaster I've ever been on. Ember actually went on it too and loved it. She's a daredevil like her Mom!) We weren't able to go on the new Toy Story ride because it kept shutting down for "tecnical difficulties". What a bummer! We'd heard it was so cool and really wanted to go on it.

Here's Logan with "Handy Manny", one of his many favorite shows. This picture was taken seconds after we had to put his shirt back on him after being threatened to be kicked out of the park. Let me explain. As we were standing in line waiting to get in someone noticed that Logan's diaper was leaking through his pants. Crap! So as soon as we got in I took Logan to change him while Matthew took the girls on a ride. I didn't realize how bad he was until we got in the bathroom. Let's just say that I'm glad it was early enough in the morning that we were practically alone in the bathroom. He had poop ALL up his shirt and ALL down his legs. I pretty much stripped him down and gave him a bath in the sink. I was able to wipe the poop off the inside of his pants, but I had to pretty much wash his shirt in the sink, which of course left it sopping wet......which is why he didn't have a shirt on. We had it layed out on top of the stroller so that it could dry in the sun when a "cast member" spotted us and told us we'd have to leave if we didn't have a shirt on him. My mother-in-law explained that his shirt was all wet, but they wouldn't even let her explain. Geez! Whatever.....it was so warm that day it was practically dry by the time we were forced to put it back on.

Here's the kids getting ready to go the Muppet 3D show. Peyton was very entertained by her glasses and thought she was such a big girl!

"Boo's" door.

This was a re-make picture of one of my favorite pictures from when we went a couple years ago. It didn't turn out near as cute as the original, but it's fun to see them side by side.

This is another one that's practically a remake. Kya and I went on this ride together last time and had a similar picture taken of us.

This is one of the girl's favorite rides...."Jumping Jellyfish".

Yes folks, he's just a kid at heart! Isn't he cute?

We planned on watching the parade that night and had secured ourselves some pretty good seats. They happened to be right next to a water attraction that the kids could run through. It had been a long, hot day so I said what the heck and let the kids go wild. Logan was pretty much soaked from head to toe by the time the parade started. We took his shirt off and rang as much water out as we could and hurried and put it back on before another cast member saw. ;) So twice in one day he had to put a wet shirt back on.

Logan loved the parade. Isn't his little face just precious?!? I missed getting the best shots of his excitement, but you can still just see how excited he is. It's moments and faces like that that make trips like this that much more worth it.

California Adventure was even more decked out with Halloween decor than Disneyland was. It had candy-corn themed things all over the place, including this HUGE prize winning candy corn. It even had a section with a vegetable garden where they had made vegetables out of candy corn. It was cute!

Even the huge sign out front that says CALIFORNIA was in candy corn colors. I can't believe how all-out they go!

After we left we went down to a restaurant in Downtown Disney called Tortilla Joe's. The food was delicious. We had eaten at another place down there a couple nights before called The Jazz Kitchen....or something like that. It was supposed to be cajuny-New Orleans dishes. It was horrible. We were very disappointed. But good food or not, the atmosphere of eating in Downtown Disney is very fun. You're out in the open eating outside, there's usually some live music playing from somewhere, and plenty of PEOPLE WATCHING....my favorite!

Thursday:
We had a bit of drama today. Logan got lost! We had rode a couple rides and were in line for another when suddenly we realized that Logan wasn't with us. We were pretty sure he's made it to the next ride with us so we just thought he'd wandered down the line a bit. Nope! We started to panic and called his name which got the attention of others in line. They alerted the ride operator and before long we were giving out a description of him. Matthew left and went back to the ride we'd just been on to look around. While he was gone I lost it and started crying! The ride operator called me back over so she could help calm me down by telling me that they had "shut down" Disneyland....meaning that they had closed the exits and were not going to let anyone leave until he had been found.....and that every security officer in the place was looking for him whether they were at the attraction next to us, or across the park. I felt better, but knew I wasn't going to be completely o.k. until I had my little boy back in my arms again. Within 5 minutes (the longest 5 minutes of my life!) the operator called me back over to tell me that they had found him and were bringing him over. Sure enough, they found him right by the ride that we had just gone on last. We don't know how Matthew missed seeing him unless he was literally following him around in a circle. He was fine.....until he saw me crying and then he started bawling! It was quite the scene. The operator told us that as soon as we were ready she'd let us right on the ride. Hmmm....maybe I'll let my kids wander off more often. Kidding! It was so not worth the panic we felt. We were so happy to have him back safe in our arms!

We spent most of the day with Ben, Shannon, Dave, Kenia, and their kids. We were able to trade off kids a lot so that the adults could go on rides that the kids couldn't. It was great! At lunchtime we had more poop incidents with both Logan and Peyton. We thought they had to be sick, until Matthew realized that we'd been feeding them a LOT of apple juice the past couple days. Oops! Needless to say we stopped immediately.

We had planned on going to the parade that night. We had been planning for a while now an exact strategy of when and where to sit for the parade based on tips that my friend, Christie, gave me. A little before we were going to head over to our spot everyone but us decided that they wanted to go on Indiana Jones. We knew we'd never get our spot if we went with them so we told them we weren't going to go. But Ember and Kya really wanted to go (because their cousins were going) and Ben and Shannon said it was fine if we left them with them. In the meantime, we were going to go get dinner, carry it over to our "spot" and save an area for all of us where they'd meet up with us. Well, it was quite the feat getting the food over to our spot without the girls there to help us carry the food. And after a long time without them there we called to see where they were. They had decided to go on a couple other rides. We were a little frustrated because they were going to be closing the parade route soon and if they didn't hurry back they wouldn't make it in time. This was something we were so excited to do with the girls and had been planning for a while. Just as planned, we had great seats.....but sure enough, they didn't get back in time and weren't able to meet up with us. They were able to sort of view the parade from a different location, but nowhere near as well as we did. We were also frustrated because Matthew and I are not necessariy parade lovers. This really was something we were ultimately doing for Ember and Kya. So it really turned out to be almost a time-waster for us. But all in all, it was a great lesson in communication for us. And it was a lesson for the girls in teaching them that they can choose their actions, but they can't choose the consequenes. I'm not sure they got out of it exactly what I hoped they would, but nonetheless it was a learning experience for all.

Here's another example of the Halloween decor. This is at the turnstiles as you're entering.

The carousel is always a kid favorite. Logan was so mesmerized trying to figure out how it worked and how the animals went up and down. I just love watching him grow and try to figure out new things. Oh, if we could all be kids again and have that same sense of wonder about the things around us that we all just take for granted!

One more note, this was taken right before Logan went missing.

Reunited and it feels so good!!!

Here's another "look of wonder" from a child.....followed by a look of mischief! Peyton kept standing up on all the rides that she wasn't supposed to. She was just getting so excited and couldn't sit still.

We were the last people that Minnie was allowed to take a picture with before she took a "break", even though there was about 50 people in line behind us. This became a running theme for us and we were the "last people" allowed for 3 or 4 other characters. I'm just glad that was the case, and that we weren't the ones that were next in line that kept getting cut off.

Peyton's first ears! She didn't like them much and this was about the best we got from her wearing them.

All of us with the big mouse himself! We were in line right behind some fellow Utahns. This was a big week for Utahns to be in California because it was Fall Break.

Lock those kids up!!!

Disneyland no longer has the princesses just wandering around the park. They have an area now called the "Fantasy Faire" where you can do a bunch of things like go to a storytelling by the princesses or be crowned/knighted royalty, etc.... Or you can just stand in line to meet the princesses. I think the kids would have loved all of it, but we only had time to stand in line to meet the princesses. That alone took 45 minutes! But I thinkEmber and Kya thought it was all worth it. They had used their money that they'd been saving from allowances to buy some autograph books the day before. So as well as pictures with the princesses, they also got their autographs. It was a dream come true for them. I just wish they'd stay in this stage forever where they still dream of being a princess. I don't want them to grow up! This will probably be our last trip to Disneyland that will have that certain magical quality for Ember and Kya.

Who gave that girl a license? Ember and Kya each took a turn being the driver. I was laughing so hard the entire time because they weren't big enough to see where they were going so the track was jerking us all over the place. I'm getting giggly just thinking about it. ;)

Here's one of those times that we were the last ones allowed to take a picture. Buzz was headed for a bathroom break I believe and we caught him as we were exiting Space Mountain.

Here was our amazing view of the parade that Ember and Kya missed out on. Logan thought it was too loud. Apparently we were TOO close! ;)

The fam in the classic tea cups! I had really wanted a picture of all of us in the tea cups but no one was with us when we went on it. BUT, right before they were going to start the ride they had to wait a minute for something, so we were able to ask a random stranger in line if he could take our picture. He was only able to take one picture before they announced that they were going to start the ride.....but that one and only shot actually turned out pretty good.

Exiting Disneyland for the last time! :(

I think this picture of Logan says it all......it had been an exhausting, but very fun day!

Friday:
Today we went to a beach that my father-in-law had scouted out for us the day before. It was about 20 miles away, but it wasn't crowded at all and only cost a little bit for parking. First of all, we took the "scenic route" there which took about an hour just to go those 20 miles. And then we found out within minutes of being there WHY this beach wasn't crowded. Shannon was down on the beach next to the water with about 5 or 6 of the kids while the rest of the adults were up a little further on the beach helping the other kids with sunscreen and stuff. Suddenly we heard Shannon scream. A huge wave had come in and she had tried to scoop up as many kids as she could. Logan almost got dragged back in to the ocean. A lifeguard showed up a few seconds later and said, "You're not from around here, are you?" We all kind of laughed. Apparently this beach was known for it's violent, unpredictable waves that come crashing in, pulling kids back in and spitting them back out with the next wave, causing neck injuries. So he told us that if we wanted to get near the water that we needed to be extremely cautious with the kids. The waves were really cool actually and if we hadn't had a bunch of kids with us they would've been even cooler. So needless to say we didn't stay for very long. But it all turned out to be pretty fun and we only almost lost another child once.....Logan again of course.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Look at me, I can stand! (Peyton took her first couple steps just a couple days before we left. She didn't attempt walking much while we were gone, but she did get more and more steady while standing.)

Here's a brave crew heading for the water....only to retreat a few seconds later.

You can't fully tell in this picture, but Peyton was covered in sand from head to toe by the time we left. She had a hay-day!

Then that night we all went to Mickey's Trick Or Treat party at California Adventure. It was a special ticketed event, so all of CA was closed down except to those who had bought tickets. Ironically it felt more crowded than on a regular day. But anyway, the kids got to dress up (so did I.....I was a Jazz fan!) and there were stations set up where there were huge doors that the kids could go trick-or-treating at. They also had some crafts set up but we didn't get to do any of them. They had a lot of areas designated for picture taking with characters. We did a few of those. Mostly we just tried to go on as many rides as we could. (I didn't feel like spending $150 for my family to walk around and get a few dollars worth of candy. I can go to the store and do that for a lot less.) Unfortunately a LOT of the rides were closed for the night. But we got to go on Soarin Over California a couple times, Matthew and I got to go on the roller-coaster again, and we FINALLY got to go on the Toy Story Mania ride!! It was about 11:30 and the rest of the family had left and we were about to too when I decided that I really wanted to see if we could ride Toy Story before we left since this would be our last opportunity. The kids were getting tired, but Matthew reluctantly agreed. The line was huge, but we went ahead and got in line. We waited for about 45 minutes (which is actually a pretty short wait for this ride) and Logan was asleep in Matthew's arms for a good portion of that time. Strollers weren't allowed in line so I was holding Peyton. Matthew and I both wanted to die by the time we got to the front of the line. But all of us agreed that it was SO WORTH IT! I would have stood in line all over again if the park hadn't already been closed. It's an interactive ride where you get to play games throughout. They need more rides like this one. I can't even describe how fun it is!

Here's our last picture of Logan with his Mickey ears before they went missing. Boo hoo!

This is the Toy Story ride. SOOOOO fun!!!

When we got back to the hotel the kids just crashed. We were so tired too that I think we just let all the kids sleep in their clothes. Oh, one more story about this night. Matthew's parents called us when they got back to the hotel to see where we were because they had just gotten back to the hotel and at the room right above us (which was right next door to them) the people staying there were having some sort of rave or something and the cops were there breaking it up. We were still at the park at this point thank goodness and were glad for one more reason that we had decided to stay. It could have been quite the terrifying scene for the kids had we gone home to that. The cops told my in-laws that that particular room was kind of a hot-spot for raves and that they are there pretty frequently breaking things up. Nice! Suddenly the stomping around we'd heard from the room above us the Saturday night before all started making sense. We thought they were just doing some refurbishing in that room, but we're positive it was another rave. Yikes!

Saturday:
We packed up and hit the road. Thanks to whatever happened to make all the accessories not work, and extra breaks because of children, it was a LONG trip back. We tried to stop at an Autozone and fix the car, but found out that it wasn't as fixable as a blown fuse.....thus making it unable to be fixed at that point. Matthew and I did enjoy some nice talks though. That's what road trips are good for, right?


So there we you have it. It was a FUN trip, but it's good to be home. We miss the beautiful weather though! It was unusually warm while we were there. If it hadn't been for all the gazillions of Halloween decorations, I never would've believed it was Fall. But now that we're home, the weather here is a constant reminder that nonetheless it is FALL!