Disneyland

Disneyland was the big reason for the trip and it was fantastic! I knew we would love it, but it was even better than I had imagined. We all had a really good time. With the Fast Pass and Ride Swap, we hardly had to wait in any long lines. Mark & I both got to ride all the roller coasters, and Jackson got to go on them twice or even four times. If it wasn't a roller coaster, everyone was able to go on the ride together since most rides don't have height limitations.

Bennett was so excited to ride the big carousel.

Sarah loved her horse's pink ribbons.

Jungle Cruise

I have to admit that as parents, our favorite part of the day was watching Sarah with the princesses. This was the one exception to the long line absence. It was a 75 minute wait to see the princesses. But Mark waited in line, while Paxton napped in the stroller, and I took the kids on a few other rides. Then while I got lunch, Sarah got her face painted (conveniently located right next to the princess faire! -- how thoughtful!) She sat perfectly still and was thrilled with being so fancy.

She was excited to tell me all about the experience.

Then we finally got to meet three princesses. The boys were there but for some reason none of them wanted to hug the princesses. :) Each of princesses spent several minutes with Sarah, asking her questions, giving hugs. She ate it up!

Sarah & Ariel

Sarah & Belle

Sarah & Jasmine

After meeting the princesses, there was the Princess Coronation Ceremony. They taught the kids a dance and then some of the princesses came on stage and danced it with them. Then they brought out maypoles and everyone danced around them. Sarah & Paxton both loved it. (Mark took the big boys on another ride. They had had enough princesses for one day.)

Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters - a group favorite.

We made up for the princess wait by taking the boys to the Jedi Training Show. Jackson was disappointed not to be chosen as a padowan, but he still enjoyed the show. Even Paxton was entranced by Darth Maul. He was scary!!

Paxton LOVED Small World.

 

With our Fast Pass and Ride Swap, both Mark and I got to go on Space Mountain, and Jackson got to go twice.  Yahoo!

At dinner time, I drove the younger kids back to the Bennetts' house and put them to bed. Mark & Jackson stayed and rode Big Thunder Mountain and some other rides. I went back to join them and we stayed until the park closed at midnight. It was drizzling rain and pretty cold, but we bundled up and had a great time. We got to ride Indiana Jones with hardly any wait and watch the fireworks. All super fun!

Legoland

For years, Jackson has dreamed of going to Legoland. I'm so glad that we were able to go before he was too old to have a good time. It was a great introductory amusement park, and got us ready for Disneyland.

There were lots of crazy things built out of Legos. Jackson enjoyed the tame roller coasters. Bennett would not go on anything that looked slightly scary. Sarah was game for anything she was tall enough to ride.

Safari ride.

Dinosaur Dig

Paxton went down the slides dozens of times. No fear, and totally in love with being able to do it all by himself. He would've been happy there all day.

 

 Splash pad that played music.

The kids were excited to drive these little Lego cars. Sarah and Bennett loved it, but it turned out to be a bit "underwhelming" for Jackson.

 

 

Bennett was brave and went on the helicopters even though he was scared of the height.

 

Bennett wanted to brave and like the pirate shop ride, but as soon as it started up, he started to scream "I want to get off! I don't like!" and cried through most of the ride. Poor kid! Everyone else loved it.

Paxton was a trooper and took a much-needed nap in the stroller.

Shooting pirates with water cannons.

Can you see Sarah's very serious facial expression? She was taking the exploration very seriously!

Bennett was also a very serious knight. You can't tell but he loved it!

These little airplanes were just Bennett's speed.

Bennett was scared to death & so brave. Sarah was so excited & loved it.

The kids were all fascinated with MiniLand USA. Really cool.

MiniLand Star Wars was not completed but we could see a lot of it from afar. Jack's favorite.

Just as a sidenote, the food at Legoland was surprisingly good for an amusement park. Salads, stirfry with fresh vegetables, nice desserts. Pricey, of course, but really good. All of us enjoyed it.

Finally the Sun!

Of course, the day Mark was in conference meetings all day it was beautiful and sunny. A totally perfect San Diego day. I took the kids to the Scripps Aquarium which was just down the road from our hotel in La Jolla. It was the perfect size for an outing without dad and all the kids. As some of you might have guessed, my kids could've spent all day at the water table.

They had a great seahorse exhibit, lots of tropical fish, and even a shark tank.

 The view from the aquarium was incredible!

We headed back to the hotel for Paxton to have a nap. Then, headed to the park on the beach to enjoy the sun even though it was only in the 60's.

Sarah was in love the sand. It was challenging to keep her from throwing it in the air, but she loved running it through her hands and toes. She even made "sand angels." Paxton on the other hand did not like the feeling of sand in his toes. He would only walk on the sand when we were down by the water and it was much more compact. But he loved the slide!

 What a view! It was just a perfect evening. I could definitely handle living in San Diego!

Just after we took this video, Bennett fell in the waves and got totally soaked. Time for the fun to be over. The hotel bathtub was full of sand that night!

Torrential Downpour

Monday we planned on going to Sea World or Legoland but there were threatening clouds in the sky. The woman on the phone at Sea World said there were blue out her window so we headed that direction. By the time we arrived, it was a torrential downpour. Tons of people sat in their cars debating whether or not to pay the exorbetant prices to get totally soaked in the park. We decided we were tired of being wet and headed for Balboa Park where we could go to the Natural History Museum and other indoor attractions.

It was much more low key and the kids still had a great time.

 

Of course, when we left the Natural History Museum we questioned our decision since the sun was so bright that my NW kids had to hide their eyes. 

 

We ate a lovely lunch outside the Japanese Friendship garden. Fabulous bento and curry that was the best food we'd had on the trip thus far. 

We spent the afternoon at the Air & Space Museum. The kids had a fabulous time.

That evening Mark went to his conference. It took forever to get everyone to sleep in the hotel room. In fact, I was still working on it when Mark came back from his meetings. When everyone was finally down, Mark & I went down to the hotel restaurant just to have some adult time for a few minutes. Unfortunately, Pax spent several hours completely awake in the middle of the night. It was awful! Total exhaustion!

(Sidenote: A little over a month ago we switched from Comcast to Qwest internet, mostly to save on cost, but with the promise that we would have much faster internet speeds. I'M NOT SEEING IT! It is taking forever to upload all these photos. What a pain!)

San Diego

Mark had a health conference in San Diego on Monday and Tuesday. We arrived early Sunday morning and slept as long as we could. Paxton, Sarah and I had a good walk around the hotel while everyone else tried to get a little more sleep. Even in San Diego, the weather was cold and windy. We took the children to see the temple that afternoon and the wind about blew us off our feet.

It was great to have a quiet day to catch up on a little sleep and take it easy for a few hours.

Epic Vacation Day 2

I think I'm going to have to write about this trip in small chunks because I don't have the time or energy to finish it at once. Maybe I'll get through it before our next major trip in July!

After hiking in the Redwoods, we drove down Hwy 101 to San Francisco. It was a long way! And very winding. Thank heavens for Dramamine. We stayed right on Fisherman's Wharf which was really cool, except for the pouring rain!

After wondering around the pier for a while we decided to get out of the rain and take a boat tour. Jackson would've loved a tour of Alcatraz, but we didn't think the little ones would handle it too well so we had to settle with seeing it from afar.

Going under the Golden Gate bridge was really cool.

There were tons of sea lions on Pier 39 and Jackson took tons of pictures of them.

There was also a lot of chocolate, and we ate some delicious sour dough bread. Everyone was very cheerful and patient with the lousy weather. However, we did decide to forego a stop in San Luis Obispo and just make the long trek down to San Diego that night. In and out of hotels was already getting old!

Belated Vacation Post

So much has happened in the last month that I have been intimidated to post anything because it will take so long to catch up. But then it just keeps getting worse with more and more happening, so I am just going to do my best. Here goes...

The last two weeks in March we took an epic road trip down the California coast to San Diego and Disneyland, across to Arizona, and back home through Utah. I was scared that it would be disastrous, but it turned out to be almost completely wonderful and a trip we will always cherish and remember.

We left town on Thursday afternoon. We were able to stop in Junction City to see Mark's grandpa who has not been feeling well lately. Even though the kids were a little wild and crazy (Sarah refused to sit for the photo), it was wonderful to see him.

We drove late that night to Crescent City, California, right outside the Redwood National Forest. We didn't realize until the next morning that this is where the tsumani hit after the earthquake in Japan. A man was killed being washed out to sea there. In the photo below you can see the broken docks and sunken sailboats damaged in the tsumani.

The kids were excited to see sea lions on the sunken docks (except Sarah who was too cold to want to take a picture here).

 More sea lions, blocked off so people wouldn't bother them.

We drove into the Redwood Forest and it was like another world. The boys loved that Empire Strikes Back was filmed here, and you could see why -- it was definitely other-worldly! Totally amazing and beautiful.

It was raining but it was too bad under the enormous trees. Here the boys are standing inside a hollowed out tree trunk.

The base of a tree that had fallen over. Paxton thought he was a big kid climbing around after the others. He did not want to left out for one second. He figured he could do whatever they could (which was a little dangerous!)

Isn't it amazing how small Jackson looks next to that tree? Wow!

This picture is typical of how things went -- most everyone doing fine, one of us having a tough time. A nice couple offered to take a family shot and Bennett ran off into the woods and refused to be in the picture. (You can see him off to the right in the bushes.)

 

As we headed south to San Francisco, we drove our car through the famous "drive thru" tree. It was a very tight fit in the mini-van. Had to pull in the sideview mirrors and go very slowly. I think cars were smaller back when the hole was made!