Vacation wrap up

 I'm getting behind. I've got Easter and Grace's birthday to get blogged and I still haven't finished the trip. Our off days on the trip are often just as fun (gasp) as our Disneyland days. It's always nice to have a change of pace for a day.

We had a minor problem this year called the GPS. It was a nightmare. Brian and I both have old barely functioning phones right now. Brian's has the best GPS by far. Every time we'd type in an address or just as we needed to make the next turn it would say "GPS signal lost". Then his phone would lock up and we'd get way off course. It made ALL of our travel take longer and was a bit frustrating. Meg ended up wearing her headphones everywhere we went because it stressed her out to hear us get stressed out.

Finding this bird sanctuary was the roughest. It's this very cool sanctuary located on a Vet campus. The GPS got us to the campus but there were literally no signs leading to where the sanctuary was. It was worth the effort though. These birds loooved attention. They talked and chatted. Adin made a friend with one of them that was mad if he would walk away. It's really a fun place to visit. We only had a short time before it closed due to our inability to find it, but it ended up being the perfect amount of time.

Next we attempted to find lunch. That was a complete joke with the GPS. We finally found a tiny mcdonalds though and then headed to the Getty. We went here on our last trip, but we got there only an hour before closing time so we were determined to get more time. We were hopeful that Grace would last a little while looking at paintings but it only lasted 5 minutes. Everyones in there studying the paintings and theres a general quietness about the place so you add a rambunctious 2 year old and you feel like you're disturbing everyone. I took her to the courtyard and the gardens for a couple hours while Brian and the kids explored.

 It has a really cool view from the top.

 The gardens are really beautiful.

I'm convinced that a trip to California without a trip to Farmer's Market just wouldn't feel right at this point. It's become our little spot that we always make time for. I loved it just as much as I always do. It always includes a trip the bathrooms at The Grove mall. They are the fanciest bathrooms you will ever be in. They have actual hand towels to dry your hands and a maid in there full time wiping things down after every use. The kids get a big kick out of it. 

Our last two days of Disney were just as magical as the first.

 This was a not so magical moment though. Brian waited nearly two hours to ride Peter Pan. I kept Grace out of the line until the very end because she wasn't the most patient line waiter. She just didn't get the concept of waiting your turn.

 I loved how she kept rubbing Eeyore's belly

We waited in line twice for the princesses. The first time we went through I bumped a button on my nice camera that made it so that all the pictures were blurry. I ended up snapping with the iphone but just didn't love them. Plus I had brought a story book for them to sign that I forgot the first time through. Brian might have thought I was insane but he humored me. :)

This was one of my favorite moments of the trip. We didn't want to ride splash mountain late in the day because we didn't want to freeze. Brian and Meg rode it in the early afternoon and when Adin and I went to ride it, it broke down. Adin reallllly wanted to ride it one more time so we did it. Everyone was requesting the back because no one wanted to be cold. Plus the line was nonexistent so they gave me and Adin our own boat. It was so fun. Adin showed me the face that he wanted me to copy. When we were done he told me I didn't quite pull it off. Haha.

One of the nights in the hotel, I wrote a list on my ipad of things I didn't want to forget about this trip. 

1-By far my favorite moments on this trip were taking Grace on pirates. She loooved that ride. Her wide eyes taking everything in and then immediately wanting to ride it again. At first she didn't love the drops but by the end she was holding up here hands and insisting we all "put hands up". She loved the smoke in the cave opening right before the boat scene. She would hold her hands up a full minute before we got there in anticipation. It was so cute. 

2- I love early morning in the hotel with Gracie. She would wake up long before the others so we would either jump in the shower together or try and sit quietly and play on the ipad. 

3-On our last night Brian, Meg, and Adin were riding Big Thunder and it was dark out. I was sitting with Grace at the exit. She noticed stars in the sky and asked me to sing Twinkle Star. I sang it for her and her eyes sparkled and she had the biggest smile as she rocked back and forth listening to me sing it. It was magic.

4-I love Grace running up and hugging and patting the Pooh characters

5-I loved the older kids fighting over who to sit by on rides.

6-I adored the one on one time with the older kids when we had to split up for rides. 

7-The older kids thought everything Grace did was soooo cute and they loved watching her experience things the first time

Disneyland 2016 was a truly magical trip!!!

DISNEYLAND 2016...Magic! (part one)

Oh, how I miss this trip! I'm concerned to say it is seriously influencing where we all want Brian to go to school. Brian told me the other day that he had swung back to wanting to go to USC. When I asked why, he said "Disneyland." We're all still going through serious withdrawals. Gracie just doesn't understand why we can't go there everyday. Brian and I agree that a huge game changer for our trip this year was a little splurge on a suite. It had two rooms so at night we could put Grace down right away and then shut the doors and have our evening to hang out and read and watch tv. We didn't have to be completely silent and have all the lights off like we did last time. It was pure genius. 

This is our first day at Disneyland. The morning hours of our first day were by far the slowest of our trip. It was beautiful. The pic above is Gracie realizing that Disneyland was real. She was SO excited. She just kept giving me and Brian these adorable bewildered looks. She had been watching Disneyland videos on YouTube for months leading up to this trip, but it was adorable to watch her realize she was there. An ingrained memory for sure. We ALL agree that one of our favorite parts of every trip is entering Disneyland and walking up main street for the first time. You feel like you're home. It's truly magical.

The first ride of every single trip. It was a walk on. This ended up being Gracie's favorite ride by far and she asked for it over and over again on the trip. We rode it a lot, but no one had a single complaint about that. 

This was walking off Pirates. Brian and Meg headed over to get fast passes for splash mountain. I turned around and realized there was no one walking in New Orleans Square but Adin. Pretty awesome. I wish I could say that this was a sign of a crowdless trip but alas that wasn't the case. Monday was a rare slow time and the rest of the trip was pretty busy despite it being listed as one of the slowest times of the year. 

The second ride of every trip. :) A walk on as well. :)

Adin made a autograph book during has "six days of disney". He wanted to get as many autographs as he could but there wasn't any way he was going to be seen asking for Sophie's autograph. This is him instructing Gracie to ask for her autograph. Teeheehee.

I packed along Gracie's Sophie dress and her amulet. Gracie loved meeting her. For a stranger shy little girl, Grace had no problem loving on the characters.

 This was a more memorable magical moment for me. I loved the one on one moments with each of the kids. This was just me and gracie on the teacups.

 We're also big on trying to take it slow. The long lines and heavy crowds kind of mess that up for me. I feel rushed to fit everyone's favorite rides in. We probably could have used a little more of just sitting around like this. Meg was adamant that she get another turkey leg. She regretted that decision pretty quickly and had an upset stomach after this thing. I'll be curious to see if she'll ever eat one again.


More to come. :)

Cali 2016- Drive and Day 1

If everything goes according to plan, we have some BIG changes coming up for our family this year. Brian and I wanted to have an epic disneyland vacation because we aren't sure when we will be coming back. We really wanted to be present and happy and make it super memorable. The excitement leading up to this trip was big. We had to delay a month on fairly short notice due to some work conflicts. Adin was so devastated. Meg wasn't very devastated because that meant she got to go to her Valentines dance. Grace had no idea. She definitely got that something big was coming though  because about two weeks before we were set to go she started asking frequently everyday if we could go to disneyland. She'd wake up in the morning and ask for it. It's hard to explain time to a two year old. Adin was by far the most excited. He could hardly stand it. He created the 6 days of disney to count down. He had a different activity planned for each day. 

The drive down was really smooth until we stopped in Vegas for lunch. We enjoyed some yummy in and out then Brian walked with Gracie and Adin over to a pet store to give them some more time out of the car. Meg and I were supposed to drive the car over. Welll, I got in the car and the engine would turn over and then immediately turn off. :( I can't even tell you how freaked we were. Stuck in Vegas on a Saturday with our trip all planned and waiting for us. Brian came back and we noticed a Meineke car place in the same lot that was open. Brian was able to get the van there by keeping engine revved up. I wondered stores in the strip mall with three very anxious kids. After about an hour, the car place couldn't find anything wrong with it and it was running smoothly again. It was such a blessing. We were all praying like crazy. They think we may have put some bad gas in it or something...still not sure. The van was okay the rest of the trip. It didn't run smooth all the time, but it never stopped again on us and we haven't had any problems now that we are home. 

The hotel we had booked for disneyland, was enormously expensive our first night there. We decided to stay somewhere else the first night. We stayed in a town called Monteray park. Incidentally that's one of our top places we would want to live if Brian ends up at school in California. We were able to explore the neighborhoods and get a feel for the area. Our first night we went to an authentic chinese food place. Everyone loved it (except maybe me who does not love chinese food). We thought Brian's fortune was meant for him with all our decisions coming up and his nagging fear that he's putting his family through too much by going back to school. 

Our first day was a Sunday so we try to keep it low key. We visited a small aquarium right off of a beach. It was really fun and they even had touching pools.

Then we headed to the beach. We wanted to go tide pooling so we based our trip on when the tide was the lowest that day. It happened to be in the evening. I've NEVER been to the beach at night and I must say that I think I'll always insist we stay till the evening from now on. I LOVED it. The beach is magical at night. I loved watching the sun set over the ocean. Brian and the older two spent a lot of time searching the rocks for sea creatures and they found quite a bit of sea anemone. Brian was on a hunt for a starfish but didn't luck out. I adored the lighting for looots of pictures. It was just stunning and magical.

 This girl does not like to be cold. She got chilly and really wanted to leave. She just kept asking for the car. I bundled her as best I could and cuddled with her to extend our time there. Such a great memory.

I need to get this image rotated and edited up (my photo editing software is gone and I have yet to get a new one). It was a great start to the trip!