Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away!

I hope you will indulge me as I go through all the details of this trip. I use this as my little memory book. I am going to include the Cliff notes version of Disneyland in a later post because this is going to be really long. Feel free to skip the long drawn out version.

We took a trip to Disneyland again this year. I would like to make it a once a year event while the kids are little. These are years that are really magical with them at Disney. I had a patient at work make me cry speaking to this fact prior to leaving for this vacation. She had taken her 15 and 10 year old to Disneyland and had commented on how the "magic" just wasn't there the way it had been when they were younger. She had spent much of the trip missing the days when her kids were little. I thought about this a great deal while we were there and tried to soak up all the moments. They grow up so fast. I watched ungrateful, bratty teenagers who were listening to their iPods instead of talking with their parents and longed to keep them little.

The wonderful things were plentiful. The kids (and me mostly) were so caught up in it all. We took the evening flight to Long Beach and even got the double upgrade on the rental car that I had previously mentioned. Very exciting! We found our way with no problems and then I had a panic when I realized that I had forgotten my noise machine that I run while I sleep. Nolan pulled into a Target without prompting. He knows I'm a nightmare to sleep with otherwise. Thanks, Noli!

Thursday we started out with the courtesy continental breakfast where we were sold a 3 day park hopper pass for $100 dollars by the lady sitting next to us (reg $180) and it included free parking. I was convinced that I was destined to save money on this trip. We headed to the park to let the games begin. We had been there for 4 hours when we stumbled to Buzz Lightyear's ride. Cole said while we were in line, "We are finally here, we are finally at Disneyland." We stuck around for the evening parade, which was fun. Cole and I even did the Conga line. We rode It's A Small World. I think that ride has been open only once in all the times I have been and never when we have taken the kids. While the song does get annoying, it is cool inside, a nice little break. We crashed as soon as we got back to the hotel. So tired.

Day 2 was a Friday. When we pulled into the parking lot 10 minutes after it had opened the lot was FULL. Instantly Nolan started to sweat and rolled down his window. Luckily, it wasn't as bad as we anticipated inside.
The boys were eager to go down to the Jedi Training Academy to see if their would be picked to learn the ways of the Jedi. Cy's enthusiasm caught the eye of the Master Jedi and he went up for training and then fought Darth Vader. It was awesome. Poor Coley tried to be strong but was sad he did not get to partake.
This was the first time that we could almost ride every ride as a family. The only ride that Cole was too small to ride was Indiana Jones. He bravely conquered Space Mountain, the Matterhorn, and the Runaway Train. I think we traumatized him though.

Cole was really afraid of many of the rides there. They were too loud, too dark or too scary. We took him on Pirates. He was hesitant to open his eyes or ears. To add insult to injury the guy behind us had a full on panic attack and was screaming and trying to get out of the boat!! Even I was scared.
After that we ran into a guy, Taylor Kolb, that we had gone to high school with. He lives in Canada with his wife and daughter and we had not seen him for 15 years. Crazy! These things make me very happy.
Next we headed to California Adventure. We wandered to the back of the park and waited for some of the characters to come out. We were very successful. We ran into Handy Manny, Sully, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Mr. Incredible. It was nice to relax and the kids had fun getting the characters' autographs.
Cy rode Tower or Terror twice, once with me and once with Nolan. Cole was tall enough to ride it and we almost let him, I'm glad we did not.
After another full day, the kids were exhausted and so were we. I had to talk them into staying for the Pixar Parade. Mean mom. It was awesome! We saw. Monsters, Inc, Cars, Nemo, The Incredibles, all of our favorites. The kids just wanted to get back to the hotel to go swimming. We went to The Cheesecake Factory, also another highlight for the boys, oddly enough. "Best meal ever" they said. Noodles and butter...delicious! Then finally we went swimming. Next vacation is going to be to Farmington, Utah. It is about 25 minutes away. We'll go to Lagoon (a local theme park) and stay at a hotel with a pool. It'll save us thousands of dollars and the boys will be equally happy.

Day 3 was a day at Newport Beach. I love it there! I see the lure of living next to the ocean. It was overcast and cloudy, about 63 degrees but the boys went right into the ocean. It was frigid...and they could not have cared less. We had anticipated renting a little pedal boat but the ocean was choppy. Nolan told Cole that the sea was angry, Cole then became angry at the sea. He threw sand into it and told Nolan "not to worry. he would take care of it."
The downside to the ocean, sand. Sand is great while your there, but then it lingers and lingers.
We washed up and looked around a bit. We had anticipated doing a whale watching excursion. I was so exited to do this. The previous days reports had listed a few whales, hundreds of dolphins and sea lions. We were pumped, ready to go, went to find the boat and the tour had been cancelled for a burial at sea. Something that would have been nice to know hours ago when we had other businesses to choose from. We settled on a tour of the harbor. It had a "celebrity" home section. I love this stuff, so I enjoyed it a great deal. We saw some sea lions, which kept the boys happy. It was nice to just relax and be on the water for a bit. I would love to take a trip to Newport when it is warmer and spend a few days on the beach. What a great place.
We headed back to the hotel for more swimming, again the highlight of the day, some subway sandwiches, Disney channel and shut eye.

Day 4 was back to Disneyland. It was unofficial "goth" day at Disney. So the freaks were out in full effect. It provided much visual entertainment but also made it more crowded with crazies. Many of whom were not very happy at the happiest place on earth. One precious late teen like to use very colorful language in line for Buzz Lightyear. Are you serious? It's a kid ride and I would not appreciate coming home from Disney with new words in the boys' vocabulary. I had to bring it to his attention. Apparently, according to him, I ruined his fun. This day was the most crowded day by far. We still didn't wait too terribly long for any ride just a lot of back and forth and weaving in and out. We did wait 40 minutes for Splash Mountain, which made me wonder why in the world anyone would go to Disneyland in the summer when the lines are 2 hours long. Cole peed his pants on Splash Mountain too. Good thing it was one where you could pull that off.
We did get to ride the new Toy Story Mania ride, it is so cute. It was worth the wait.
We spent the day, staying much longer than I had anticipated, leaving around 7 for Long Beach. We had an early flight home. Our adventures in Long Beach will require their own post.
It was a great vacation. It was nice to spend so much time together and escape the hustle and bustle of homework, work, school, baseball for the hustle and bustle of Mickey and Minnie.