Family Vacation Part III

Since the baby hasn't come yet (yes, I am 2 days past my due date, but I still feel pretty good) I figured I should finish up our family vacation. Disneyland was great, but I think everyone was happy to spend a day up in Big Bear on Saturday relaxing. Glen and I took the kids to visit his long time friends, the Mandolini's. We had a yummy lunch and really enjoyed chatting while the kids played.

After the visit we rushed back to the time share to surprise Jenny (Bill's wife) with a birthday cake and mini party. Then Glen and I got ready to head back down the mountain to Victorville. I was glad the kids didn't have to make the trip again and I'm sure they were too. We stopped by a wedding reception for a family Glen knew years ago and then it was off to his 20 year class reunion. As soon as we got inside, Glen's friend Lori Preston spotted us and came over to give us big hugs. The baby is actually being named after her and a couple of Glen's other friends from high school (Preston Michael). Lori, in my opinion hasn't changed a bit since high school except maybe a better hair style. She still looks great. Glen was probably one of the most changed. People kept giving him weird looks and when their curiosity would finally get the better of them they would come over and gasp at Glen's high school picture on his name tag. "Glen Black! No way!" Yep, a few pounds more and a few hairs less, but the same guy. There weren't a lot of people there, but it was interesting to meet some of the people that Glen had grown up with. It makes me wonder who will show up to my 20 year reunion and what they'll look like. Of course, after 20 years some things never change. The cheerleaders were still clumped together in a group on the dance floor, the quiet folks stayed mostly at their tables, and the guy who said he'd be successful really is.

It was back up the mountain to find the kids were just fine and Grandma didn't have too much trouble with them. Sunday we went to the ward in Big Bear along with quite a few other vacationing families and then it was time to pack up and head out. Grandma, Grandpa, Mike, Brittany, Bill, Jenny, and Grace all headed back to Utah and we made our way back to Victorville for a picnic and get together at the Mojave Narrows park with more of Glen's friends from High School. We all got a kick out of the camels at the park and the crazy wind reminded us of being back home in Eagle Mountain.

We stopped for a quick visit at Glen's friend, Travis's house, and then we were off to San Diego. We checked in to the time share and after Glen made a great dinner, we were all plenty eager to get some rest. Monday we decided to go into phase two of the vacation - relax more than run around. I hung out in the condo while Ammon took a very long and very needed nap and Glen took Isaac and Ella to the pool. We decided after lunch to go to the San Diego Zoo and it was a lot of fun. It was only five minutes from the time share which was just perfect. The kids loved seeing all the animals and we enjoyed not being rushed, just taking our time and seeing what we wanted. The San Diego zoo is beautifully done and all the shade made it very nice and cool. The coolest part for me, seeing some of the last panda's in the world, very cute. Isaac liked the hyena, which was staring at us like we were lunch. The hippos in the water were absolutely fascinating as they glided around without a care in the world.

Tuesday we went to Sea World and again had a lot of fun. We enjoyed seeing the penguins, the sea lions, the dolphin show, and many other things, but our favorite thing by far and completely worth the money was our lunch with Shamu. We reserved our places as soon as we got in the park and we were excited to see exactly what it entailed. It was fabulous to say the least. They had tables set up on a covered patio right next to the killer whale's "play pool". This is where they go after they do their shows and they are allowed to do whatever they want. While they were swimming in, we loaded up from an incredible buffet. There were seafood dishes, pasta, soup, chicken, kid friendly food, salad, fruit, and delicious desserts. Then as we ate the trainers helped show us where the whales were going to "pose" for pictures. The only rule was that since this was the whales play time, there was no guarantee they wouldn't splash us and those on the bottom tier were in a complete soak zone. We were fine, but you could tell the whales were having a great time as they flipped and jumped and spun for us. The kids loved it and even after we left the lunch we went down to watch the whales some more from the viewing area where you could see them under the water. It was truly amazing to see these huge creatures be so graceful in the water. As Isaac puts it, we had a great time at Sea World.

Wednesday we went to the beach for the morning. Isaac and Ella loved playing in the water, but Ammon preferred playing in the sand. Then we were on the road again and headed to Arizona. We made it into Scottsdale at about dinner time and stayed at Glen's friend, Mike's house. Glen and Mike were able to go play tennis the next the morning and the kids played in a little pool we bought. We relaxed and slept and that night we all went out to dinner. Friday morning we headed out early to finally go home to Utah. I was so excited to be back in Utah I could have kissed the ground. It's always a great feeling to come home. Even with some longer stops along the way, we made good time and were back home in Eagle Mountain by bedtime.

Our next big family vacation may not happen for a few years, but this trip left us with plenty of great memories to last until then.

Family Vacation - Part 2

Hindsight is 20/20 and we definitely learned some things from this trip. As I mentioned, we stayed up in Big Bear, California which is a beautiful town up in the mountains and a great place to visit, if you're going to stay there. Besides having the timeshare there and the one in Anaheim being booked, we felt like it was a good option because we would be going down to Anaheim two days, but then we would be going down to Victorville and the Apple Valley area the next two days, which is just about 45 minutes down the other side of the mountain. In theory it works, but after a long day at Disneyland, it was not an enjoyable trip back up the mountain. The kids fell asleep in the car pretty quickly, but every time we made a stop (which with as tired as Glen was, we had to do a few times) the kids woke up. Ella and Ammon fed off of each other's misery and cried most of the way back.

Friday morning we headed back down the mountain to go to Disneyland again and this time the trip proved too much for Ammon. Glen says that every time we go on a vacation one of our kids has to throw up in the car and this time it was Ammon. Luckily this is one thing we have learned from the past and I was ready with a tub and was able to catch most of it. We also had a couple two liter bottles of water and plenty of paper towels, so clean up wasn't that bad except for being on the side of a busy California freeway. Skip to the end of the day and I was not looking forward to the drive back up the mountain, it went better, but the big thing we learned; if you're going to Disneyland, stay in a hotel close to Disneyland, period.

Our second day at Disneyland went quite differently from the first and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more. We knew exactly where we wanted to go and with help from cousin Julie, who met us there, it was less chaotic than the day before. Not to mention that I didn't allow any bathroom incidents to foul us up. Because Ella and Ammon had to wait for a couple hours the night before while Isaac rode some big rides, we headed to Fantasy Land first. We happened across some Princesses as we first got into the park, but Ella wasn't giving in completely and wasn't too excited about having her picture taken with Sleeping Beauty. My daughter is a nut. Luckily she had a great time on the carousel, Dumbo, the train, and Peter Pan. Isaac also had fun although after the excitement of Space Mountain, he was a little bored. He and Glen were the only ones to brave the teacups which was fun to watch. Ammon had warmed up considerably to the idea of Disneyland and was pretty good about getting onto most rides, except for Dumbo. He kept pointing at the Dumbo's while we were in line and saying, "No fly, no fly." I was a little nervous, but I thought he'd be ok. Boy was I wrong. It was a total struggle to get him strapped in with me and though I should have opted out at that point, I thought he'd be excited once the ride started. Wrong. He screamed the whole time. "Yes, look at me, the big pregnant woman forcing her toddler onto a ride he doesn't like." Wave, wave.

We also figured out a trick to avoid buying so much food in the park, which yes is really expensive. We ate a late breakfast outside of the park, brought lots of healthy snacks to get us through to a late lunch in the park and then we did buy one snack later in the day in the park, the pineapple whips from outside the Tiki Room which weren't too expensive and soooo good. Dinner was at Mimi's Cafe after we left the park and met up with the rest of the family who we hadn't seen much.

We did allow the second day to be the shopping day and while Isaac checked out the knight store with Glen, I took Ella to the Princess store. She immediately raced to the beautiful yellow Belle dress, that ironically her cousin Grace had bought earlier that day, and refused to look at anything else. It took a great deal of prodding and explaining that she only had $20.00 to spend and the dress was too much, but I managed to avoid a total meltdown and she finally settled on a bracelet, some rings, a coloring book, and princess twist crayons. Phew. Isaac and Ammon ended up with guns from the Buzz Lightyear store after we rode that again. (this was Ella's favorite ride). And we were able to make a quick stop over at California adventure just to go on Monsters Inc. The other thing we learned, plan for three days at Disneyland, two really isn't enough. Though we were able to ride quite a few things and see a lot, there was more we would have liked to see and do. Now we can say we have done the Disneyland thing and our kids will have to wait until they are all bigger (we figure the youngest needs to be at least six or seven) until we go again.

Glen and Isaac on the TeacupsOn the train, in the monkey cage, how appropriate.Ammon with his favorite toy of the day, the water bottle we brought, he enjoyed spraying all of us and everyone else in the park with it.Ella finally being our little princess and posing for pictures.Cousin Julie and the gang at California Adventure.

More pictures to come when I get them from Glen's camera.

The Vacation - Part 1

After four years of deployments, babies, and work we finally decided it was time to take a nice family vacation. Glen had a 20 year class reunion in California and we decided it would be a perfect time to make it into a nice big trip including Disneyland, San Diego, and Arizona, despite the fact that I was eight months pregnant. We weren't sure what to do with the kids while we went to the reunion, so we ended up inviting my parents with my sister's two kids, Mike and Brittany, and my brother, Bill, and sister-in-law, Jenny, with their daughter, Grace, who is the same age as Ella. Their son Porter stayed home with Jenny's parents.

After months of listening to the kids ask in eager anticipation when we were going, the day finally came on Wednesday, June 18th. We woke up early and when we asked a sleepy Ammon "Do you want to go to California?", he promptly said, "OK!", and jumped out of our bed. Of course there were similar responses from Isaac and Ella as well. We met up with the rest of the family in Lehi, not completely behind schedule, and after switching some kids around to make the trip more enjoyable, we headed out.

We made it all the way to Santequin when Isaac asked, "Are we there yet?" Hmm, how to explain to a five and a half year old that we weren't even close to being there yet. Time to put a movie in. With stops every couple of hours we still made really good time and arrived in Big Bear, California, where we were staying, right around dinner time. We have a time share there and because our time share in Anaheim was completely booked, we felt like it was the next best option. In hind sight it would have been better to just pay for a hotel in Anaheim, but oh well.

Thursday morning we all got ready and headed down the mountain to Disneyland (about a two hour trip). Everyone was pretty excited despite the long drive the day before, but it proved to be a little overwhelming for some of my kids. Ella refused to pose for a picture with the rest of the kids and this proved to be her attitude for the whole trip. Getting onto the tram from the parking lot, Ammon completely freaked out and caused quite a scene, but he calmed down a little bit once we were moving. My mom stayed back with us, but the rest of the family had gone ahead and were already in the park and riding rides by the time we got there. So a couple little bumps along the way, but we were still looking forward to an exciting and fun day. As we got into the park I thought, hmmm, we should all go to the bathroom before we start getting in lines that we won't want to get out of. Simple enough, right? Well . . . I went into the bathroom with my mom and Ella and after showing Ella to a stall I went to my own, not thinking much of it. I finished, washed my hands and told my mom to go ahead and go out, I just needed to check on Ella. Still not done.

"Ella, are you almost done?" "No." "OK, sweetie, hurry up so we can go ride some rides." No answer. A couple minutes later. "Ella, are you ok?" "No." "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "Ella, we need to hurry, there are people waiting." "I don't want to do anything!" Big sigh, oh this was going to be fun. "Ella, do you need some help?" "NO!" OK, maybe she was having a hard time, I'd give her a couple minutes. No change. "Ella, are you ok?" "Yes!" "Are you almost done?" "No!" This was getting ridiculous. After about fifteen minutes my mom came back in to see what was going on. I had no idea except that Ella was locked in the stall and just sitting on the toilet doing nothing. My mom tried. "Ella, you need to hurry so we can go ride the rides." No response. I told my mom to just go with everyone else and ride something, I'd wait with her. After twenty minutes more, I was still in the bathroom with Ella feeling like a total fool and basically in tears wondering if I was going to spend the entire day at Disneyland in the bathroom. Should I ask a custodian to break the lock, should I ask someone with small kids to have them crawl under the door and open it for me? I was in no position to do it myself or I would have. Everytime I tried to command, bribe, plead, and threaten Ella to open the door or at least tell me what was wrong I was given the same response, "I DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING!" That's our Ella, the sweet princess one minute, and the fiery dragon the next. Finally after 45 minutes, my mom came back with a new plan. She had found Grace and we sent her under the door. After Ella and Grace chatted for a minute (good grief!) Grace opened the door and I was able to get to Ella. Though I wanted to choke her, all I could do was cry and ask her what was wrong. I think it shocked her that I was crying and when I told her to get off the toilet she said that she needed to wipe. "So get some toilet paper." "I can't, it's stuck." I was ready to scream. If this was the reason she had sat there for 45 minutes I was going to shoot myself. Two minutes later she was washing her hands as if nothing had happened. Needing some time to calm down, I sent Ella with the group to ride the train and I sat in the shade and waited some more. I could hear Ammon screaming in protest as they got on the train and was glad that I had opted out of that adventure. What did I learn from this whole experience? Don't let Ella go into a bathroom stall by herself, and I didn't for the rest of the trip.

The rest of the day actually went pretty well. Glen's friends Mike and Sheila Parker came to the park and helped show us around and rode with us and the kids on the rides which was a big help. Our group had basically split up and so it was just us with our kids, my mom, and Mike and Sheila for most of the day. We hooked up a couple times to eat with everyone else and for a couple rides and then we all met up at the end of the day for the fireworks show by the castle. The highlights:

All the kids loving the Buzz Lightyear ride

Forgetting about the stomach dropping drops on Pirates of the Caribbean, but still enjoying it

Riding the Winnie the Pooh ride with the lights on because they were fixing it and we were able to take pictures inside.

Isaac getting a big thrill from Thunder Mountain, but being a little scared.

Isaac getting an even bigger thrill from Space Mountain, deemed his favorite ride ever!

Ella letting a Chinese couple hold her and take her picture while she smiled perfectly (this would be in opposition to the fact that she wouldn't let us take her picture hardly at all)

An incredible fireworks show at the end of the night.

An exhausted Ammon and Ella falling asleep as we walked back to the car.

All in all, an interesting and good start to the vacation.