Vacation Review

Isaac drew these for his school teacher because he felt so bad he didn't bring anything back for her from Disneyland.

It was a great trip! Yes we all got sick of eating out, using public restrooms, driving and driving and driving, and sleeping in the same room - but overall it was a successful family vacation.
After a two day road trip, we arrived in Anaheim where we checked into our hotel and scoped out the dinner options. We decided on The Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. Pretty cool - rainstorms every 20 minutes with loud thunder and lightening, robotic animals that move and growl and hoot and howl - needless to say, this wasn't Cate's favorite place. The gorillas really freaked her out and she was even nervous about the lion and tiger pattern on the back of our booth! After dinner, we walked around Downtown Disney which included a look in the Lego store.

Addie is really into frogs these days.



The next day was our big Disneyland day. It was so fun - a nice day and no crowds.



Any ideas as to what Cate's favorite part of Disneyland was?




The kids were real troopers and we stayed all day. We hit pretty much all of the favorite rides and saw most of the characters. Favorites included Space Mountain (Wes and Addie), Pirates of the Caribbean (We all went on this one - even the baby. The scary parts didn't even phase her. Not so for Cate who hid her head in my lap the entire time. This was Isaac's favorite), the Jungle Cruise (thanks to our hilarious tour guide), and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The parade was fantastic and then we left after that. The amazing (seriously cool!) firework show was seen that night from the balcony of our hotel.
The next day was the gymnastics meet so we had some time to kill in the morning. We shopped and ate lunch (again - at this point we were getting pretty sick of restaurant and fast food). See the post below for details of the meet. After, we went out to eat (ugh) with the team at CPK at the South Coast Plaza. That is one of the nicest, biggest, fanciest malls I've ever been to. Every high-end store you can think of is there.
Sunday was pretty low-key. My friend was nice enough to invite us over for a yummy home-cooked meal (hallelujah!) and delicious dessert (recipe found on her blog). Afterwards we attended the Manhattan Beach ward. We explored this quaint little beach town and walked along the pier. It really made us miss the ocean. We ran across a little aquarium where both Isaac and Addie kissed a sea cucumber!





Here's the kids in the hotel. It's funny how much kids love to stay in hotels. They were disappointed that it was too cold to swim but the fact that the hotel served waffles and donuts every morning made up for that.

We left for home the next day. The landscape slowly changed from sunny and green to white and freezing. We were lucky to make it in our driveway - with over a foot of snow that had fallen while we were gone. Oh well, back to real life.