After a whirlwind tour of Disneyland and a stop at the beach in Santa Barbara, we finally made it home. And I think my most relaxing day of it all was the day after we got home.
I'll start from the beginning and I'll try to keep it brief.
First stop, Anaheim. After a 7 1/2 hour car trip (including stops) we arrived at the place where dreams really do come true. But I checked my bank account when we got there and it was still the same, so I'm thinking that slogan is bogus.
We rode all the family friendly rides, saw all the exciting shows and met as many characters as humanly possible in two days. All in all, it was exhaustingly good fun.
We also learned that the Pirates of the Carribean is NOT a family-friendly ride. According to my oldest, it's a "roller coaster" and according to my middle child it's incredibly loud and scary. Of course that child's opinion may be overstated a bit, since she also thought the Winnie-the-Pooh ride was too loud.
Then again, I think she has a point. On most of those rides you are inside a dark room and secluded from the rest of the park. So why do they feel the need to make the voices and noises so incredibly loud? Do you really need to hear Tigger's little "hoo-hoo-hoo-hooo" at 100 decibels?
No matter, she suffered through anyway. The highlight was teaching her to hum and sing while her ears were covered so that she couldn't hear as much of the outside noise. This little trick worked, but unfortunately I didn't discover it until the end of the second day.
A big break-through did come in the form of our younger daughter finally enjoying the big fuzzy characters. I use the word "fuzzy" because the "real life" ones, like the princesses, were still too intimidating for her. But the big animals with huge eyes and mouths staring down at her all got hugs and smiles.
Here's the photographic evidence.
Huh. Go figure.
The one major complaint I will make is that the park turns into a madhouse at 8pm. They start closing rides and major throughways so they can get ready for the fireworks show. You not only can't walk anywhere, there is no where to go since the middle of the park shuts down to prepare for it. You could stick to the outside areas, but then you'd miss the show. You can't win either way. Maybe with a lot of planning and an engineering degree we could have navigated it better. Next time.
And then getting out of the park after the fireworks show seems much like what it would be if someone just shouted "Fire!" in a movie theatre. Mind your young ones or you might loose them under the feet of the masses.
All in all, my 6 year old daughter's favorite ride was Alice in Wonderland, my 3 year old daughter's favorite ride was sitting on top of my son's stroller, and my son's favorite ride was pushing the stools around at the cafe outside Casey Jr's Circus Train. It's safe to say who enjoyed the park the most.
We did have a great weekend in Santa Barbara as well. My husband survived his longest triathalon with flying colors. Well, his colors were fluttering at the very least. We were all very proud of him, cheering him on at the finish line.
The beach was the highlight of that part of our trip. Our sand castle construction team was headed up by my husband, and manned by the many little people we had in our company at the time. It was complete with seaweed decor and a protective moat.
The one major complaint I will make is that the park turns into a madhouse at 8pm. They start closing rides and major throughways so they can get ready for the fireworks show. You not only can't walk anywhere, there is no where to go since the middle of the park shuts down to prepare for it. You could stick to the outside areas, but then you'd miss the show. You can't win either way. Maybe with a lot of planning and an engineering degree we could have navigated it better. Next time.
And then getting out of the park after the fireworks show seems much like what it would be if someone just shouted "Fire!" in a movie theatre. Mind your young ones or you might loose them under the feet of the masses.
All in all, my 6 year old daughter's favorite ride was Alice in Wonderland, my 3 year old daughter's favorite ride was sitting on top of my son's stroller, and my son's favorite ride was pushing the stools around at the cafe outside Casey Jr's Circus Train. It's safe to say who enjoyed the park the most.
We did have a great weekend in Santa Barbara as well. My husband survived his longest triathalon with flying colors. Well, his colors were fluttering at the very least. We were all very proud of him, cheering him on at the finish line.
The beach was the highlight of that part of our trip. Our sand castle construction team was headed up by my husband, and manned by the many little people we had in our company at the time. It was complete with seaweed decor and a protective moat.
Good clean fun.
Now if we could only get our son to stop screaming non-stop during all his non-sleeping hours in the car (which was most of them, if you are curious), we'd be ready to pack up for the next car trip.
And what about me, you ask? Did I enjoy our vacation?
Now if we could only get our son to stop screaming non-stop during all his non-sleeping hours in the car (which was most of them, if you are curious), we'd be ready to pack up for the next car trip.
And what about me, you ask? Did I enjoy our vacation?
Well thank you for asking. I did enjoy our week. It was a lot more work than our last vacation, and I had to wait in a long line to find my happy place, which was a little worn out by the time I got there, but I did have fun as well.
In my humble opinion, the best part about the trip was coming home. The next day I hardly saw my daughters and we never left the house.
They were so hard at work re-discovering the myriad of toys that live in our home that they never once asked to watch TV. The kicker was they did not once ask me to join them, which almost never happens around here.
That was my vacation. A whole day at home just watching my kids play, imaginations running wild.
Vacations are fun.
But it's good to be home.
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