Cabrillo Point

I think this may have been taken at the San Diego harbor. We walked, and saw boats, and looked at the USS Midway really expensive aircraft carrier museum.



Someday we'll go when we have all day to spend.

After the harbor, the kids wanted to go back to Seaworld. Our one-day tickets happened to be good for seven days. So we bit the bullet and paid for parking again. We'd seen almost all of the shows the day before, but we saw another show and spent some time in the kid's area, and went to touch the bat rays again, and then they were good. We never could get them on a ride in SeaWorld. I think they were all rided out.

Since we had a couple hours of daylight left, we wanted to go to Cabrillo Point. We'd heard good things about it, specifically its tide pools. Well, low tide was at 9 am that day, so we kind of missed that one, and we didn't even make it down to the beach before it closed. Cabrillo Point is on a Navy base, a point of land between the harbor and the ocean. It used to have a working light house, and it housed a lot of defense outposts during WWII.

 A sideways picture of a lighthouse.

 A view of the harbor. There were lots of sailboats out to enjoy the sunset.

 And, airplanes landing at the Navy base.

A monument to Cabrillo, the first European to set foot on this point. It was a beautiful spot, the perfect place to end our last day in California.

The next morning we woke early, got breakfast with a college women's volleyball team from Hawaii, and got an early start on our drive back to Utah. We planned to stop if we needed to, but the kids napped quite a bit and were content to play and draw and listen to books on cd. We ended up driving all the way home, all without any fighting or asking "Are we there yet?" Miraculous.

Before I forget

Here's a story for each of the little ones:

Alice: We bought a bunch of candy canes to give to friends, and Alice knows where they are kept. Yesterday she kept pointing at them and grunting convincingly. Then she raised her hand and said, "Me!" (Going to nursery has at least expanded her vocabulary by one word).

Clara: Today, picking up Nathan from school, we parked in front of a house that has stairs and a wheelchair ramp to the front door. She asked why, so I explained that the ramp was for people who couldn't use the stairs. She said, "Like babies!" I told her maybe it was for people in wheelchairs. Then she went on, "The babies could crawl up it and then the grownups could pick them up and take them in the door!" Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what it's used for.

Nathan: This morning he found an envelope, wrote a note, sealed it, and wanted to deliver it to the mail lady. After I made up some difficulties why we couldn't do that (like, maybe, we don't know her name or address?) he said I could just have it instead. So I opened it and it said: "Mom mom mom mom." It's maybe a good thing it didn't make it to its intended recipient.

SeaWorld

 Alice was a big fan of Seaworld. She was still really tired and we kept having to wake her up when we took her out of the stroller to go inside buildings or into one of the shows. But she didn't mind too much. Here she's enjoying the penguins swimming. Later in the day she even deigned to say a new word: ish. We've never heard it since, but she really liked the freshwater fish aquariums.

 Nathan's favorite: the shark house. This is the megalodon jaw, giant dinosaur relative of the shark.

 I think this was in the turtle building? Enjoying some sit-down time.

 When we saw the Shamu show Nathan insisted on going down to see him up close. He wanted to sit in the soak zone, and we thought we did, but it turns out we were a couple rows too high. He was really upset we didn't get wet.

 But it was probably good we didn't. Levi managed to get Alice out of the stroller without waking her and she slept for a portion of the show.

 Everyone perked up after the show when we sent to the Shamu viewing area. Here Alice and Clara are dancing. After this we went to the dolphin area, where the trainers did some talking and people on both sides of us got to touch dolphins--we were in the exactly wrong spot to get to touch them. Luckily the kids seemed okay. I was more disappointed than they were. Once we'd seen pretty much everything the all-important souvenir hunt began. We'd been putting them off all day because we didn't want to buy them one thing only for them to find something they loved more later. So we walked all over the park to get things, because of course they can't have all souvenirs in one convenient gift shop. Back to the penguin building for Alice, a dolphin for Clara, and (of course) a walk to the shark building for Nathan.

And then a long walk back to the car. The park closed at 5, which seems pretty early, but we (me, mostly) were wiped out. This was the hottest day we had and I was ready to be done.

California Adventure

We checked out of our hotel before heading over to make the most of our time at California Adventure. Our hotel allowed us to park for free until 2, so we decided we could do it all in four hours. And, mostly we did. We walked on to just about every ride with no waiting. And most of the rides we didn't get to the girls weren't big enough for, or none of the kids were big enough for. And now we have a reason to go back. Because in a few years, it will be really fun to watch Nathan on Tower of Terror.

The cars would talk to you. Nathan liked it. Clara would not come stand by it.

Thanks to our stop a Whole Foods, our kids discovered a love for Pirate's Booty. I think, meh. It's kind of weird.

Sorry; I don't know why this is sideways. Levi took Nathan to do Soaring over California while the girls and I shuttled between two rides in bugs' land before they decided they needed (another) snack. While waiting, Clara started playing and doing "magician tricks" behind this bench. They were pretty fantastic magician tricks.

Alice was starting to feel better by this day, although she was still really tired. She missed the first couple of rides because she fell asleep on the walk into the park.

When we got to the front of the line for this ride, we realized I couldn't take both kids at once, and Nathan wasn't old enough to drive alone. So a nice lady behind us offered to be with him so he wouldn't have to wait for me to take him on the next ride. He was surprisingly okay with it.

Clara was not so expert on bumper cars. Oh well.

The kids really enjoyed waiting for the Bug's Life show to begin. I forgot to realize that they might not enjoy the actual show. Oops. Little scary.

Christmas in November? Yes. Although in a few places we saw Halloween decorations, almost everywhere in both parks it was already Christmas. On November 4. Nutso.

And behold, by 2 we had seen pretty much everything that we could all do as a family. The kids were exhausted after three days of playing hard. Time for a nice nap as we drove to San Diego.

Seal Beach

 The day we drove from St. George to Anaheim we had a bit of extra time before we could check into our hotel, so we headed to Seal Beach, a town with quaint (read: expensive) beach homes. It was long past lunch, and the nearest place we could find with food was a Whole Foods. I joked that it was probably the only time I'd get Levi into a Whole Foods. Their pizza is kind of cardboardish, in case you were wondering. But the beach was beautiful.

After we cleaned the sand off Nathan's hands and arms, we headed to Anaheim and found our hotel. We parked the van and didn't move it again for three days. It was awesome.

That Disneyland place

 "The sun is too bright. Let me have your sunglasses." He was going to give me his hat, but quickly asked for it back.

First, let me just say, that staying at a hotel across the street from Disneyland was the absolute best. We parked our car at the hotel and left it there for three days. Five minutes and we were there.

The first morning we got there just a few minutes after it opened. Once we picked up our tickets and headed inside we had to...stop for a bathroom break, notwithstanding the bathroom break we'd all taken just before we left the hotel. I may or may not have been part of this first bathroom break (I was.) We saw some characters, walked down some magical real estate, et cetera. Our first stop was Tomorrowland. We rode the little rocket ride right at the entrance. Alice liked it until we put the seat belt on; meaning, she liked it for the first ten seconds. She was all right after it started going, but there was  a lever that she really wanted to reach and it was not cooperating. Clara, who I thought might be scared, giggled the whole time.

After that ride Clara was (surprise!) hungry, so Levi fed the girls a snack while I took Nathan on Star Tours. He was in heaven.


It was a little crowded that first day so we tried to avoid rides with a long line. Clara got to ride the tea cups, which she had been highly anticipating thanks to the Disneyland website? We had some ridiculously overpriced lunch in Toon Town, Levi walked a grumpy Alice around in the stroller while I took the kids to meet Mickey.

Midway through the afternoon everyone was fading fast and wanted to head back to the hotel. So we did. We rested for a little while and then went swimming. We walked to McDonald's for dinner and then went back to Disneyland until it closed at 8. We rode a few rides and watched the parade. Clara got really excited and waved at the princesses. Nathan enjoyed it as well. I think Alice was asleep (poor sicky).

The next day we had Magic Morning early entry tickets, which was a little less magical than I'd expected. The gates didn't open until 9:30, instead of 9--so imagine a bunch of hyped-up kids told to hurry up and get ready so we could wait in a line outside Disneyland. Then, when the gates opened and we hurried to get on a ride before the lines piled up, all the areas with rides were roped off. But, said the voice over the loudspeaker, "our shops are all open." Thanks so much. We bided the time in the candy shop where I convinced the kids the best option was what turned out to be ridiculously expensive jelly bellys. By the time the kids "helped" me put several kinds into our bag it turned out to be something like 14 dollars. This was not a large amount of jelly beans. It was still cheaper than the giant lollipops they wanted, and much less of a sticky mess. The kids also enjoyed the antique "moving picture" shows in the candy shop. At a penny, they were the best deal in the whole park.

Once the rides opened, we had a better time. The crowds were less, and I had  a bag full of sugar to help make waiting in the lines easier. I doled out those expensive blobs of flavor one at a time, and it helped to make the kids much more patient. We rode almost all the rides in Fantasyland before Alice got too grumpy. We had a late lunch and then rode the paddle boat, which made us too late to get over to Tom Sawyer's island. Nathan was very sad. Levi and Nathan went to do Haunted Mansion while I took the girls to Winnie the Pooh. Then we rode the train all around the perimeter of the park. Clara, true to form, somehow managed to find even this scary (the dinosaur dioramas). After the train, we (finally! allowed the kids to pick out their souvenirs. I picked one for Alice, Clara was really fast, but Nathan had to go to two different stores before I allowed him to choose his because he wanted everything (especially the really annoying Buzz Lightyear toys with lights and noises). He ended up making his own droids at the Star Wars shop, which I was much more okay with. After we had those, I wanted to ride some more rides, since the lines had really dwindled as everyone gathered for the parade, but the kids just wanted to go back to the hotel to play with their new toys. So, all the fun rides I could have taken Nathan on, since the girls were so tired and really too small, will just have to wait.

 Nathan, working on the art of the photobomb. He totally did this on purpose, and got a little surly when we caught him.

We went to there

The kids were ridiculously excited about packing. Nathan wanted to pack himself. We got all our clothes packed Saturday so we could head out Sunday right after stake conference. I've got oodles of bajillions of pictures to share, but I'll break it up a little. But here's a little overview of our trip.

We left Sunday and drove to St. George.
Early the next morning we headed out and drove to California
Visited Seal Beach and then checked into our hotel
Spent the next three days at Disneyland/California Adventure
Drove to San Diego and checked into our hotel
Spent time at Sea World, walked along the harbor, and ended our trip at Cabrillo Point
Got an early start Sunday and made the 12 hour drive home all in one day

The good:
The kids were absolutely amazing in the car. I went to the dollar store and stocked up on new coloring books, blank notebooks, and a couple small toys for each kid. I packed a box with stickers, treats, presents, pipe cleaners, and didn't even have to use most of it. They spent most of their time coloring. We also had some books on cd to listen to (side note: love is renting the Berenstain Bears cd from the library even though you know it's hugely annoying, with synthesized cheesy music in the background and ridiculously overdone voices and side effects, but those childrens do love it). We brought our car dvd player along and didn't even get it out of the bag, which was a huge win for me. Call me old fashioned, but I think it's important for my kids to learn to deal with boredom without just plugging into a device all the time; this trip showed me that they are on their way. Even Alice did awesome. Good thing she had her fingers to suck on, though. They were really the lifesaver.

Overall, the kids were well behaved all week, barring tired/sick/hungry tantrums (see The Bad below). No children were (really) lost or sunburned during the making of these memories.

The weather was just about perfect. It actually felt a little hot at Seaworld, even though the weather said it was only in the high 60s. Mid-70s and sunshine all week.

Moderate crowds at Disneyland, and almost no lines at all at California Adventure. We didn't have any trouble getting in to see all the shows at Seaworld.

Being able to spend the week with no distractions from the kids. At home I have so many other things on my mind it's hard to focus on them. No housework, cooking, Relief Society stuff--it was so nice to just focus on my kids and enjoy their personalities.

The bad:
Everybody in the family (except me, amazingly, knock on wood) got a cold the week before we left, so everyone was on the uphill side of things by the time we left. All except Alice. Her cough got worse and developed a slight fever our first night. (It's fitting, though--I, the youngest in my family, was sick during my first trip to Disneyland at age 5. My parents just kept giving my tylenol when I started to flag and then I'd be off again to play.) So we gave her some motrin when she needed it and she spent a lot of time napping in the stroller. Poor kid.

Clara seems to have a habit of licking her food rather than eating it. Then, when it's become sufficiently slimy and disgusting (think of a well-licked banana), will quietly throw it away and say that she's full. We have such a hard time getting her to eat a full meal at home, and it was worse because she was so excited to get going. Then we'd walk to Disneyland, be ready to ride the first ride, and she'd cry that she couldn't go on a ride because she was Too Hungry. This being no more than 10 minutes after we tried to make her eat a snack before we left our hotel room and she insisted she was full. She wanted to constantly snack, all day long, and her temper suffered as a result of her grazing ways.

So that it that and we are home and attempting to adjust to real life again. Are you sure I couldn't just live the rest of my life on vacation?