Highlights:
1 - Three fun-filled days with the Royal's of Yucaipa, CA. We played games, shopped, ate, and went to The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The aquarium was a big hit with everyone, but I would say William enjoyed it the most. Who knew he would get such a kick out of petting sharks and sting rays? He was so wet, he might as well have gotten in the pool and swam with them.
2 - For the boys (including Uncle Philip), a Yankee win at the San Diego Padres. They got to see one of their favorite players, Mariano Rivera, close it out for the Yankees.
3 - Disneyland! We did three days at Disneyland and it was great. The weather wasn't too hot at all (it felt hot, but was only about 80 or so during the day) and we were there early every morning to beat the crowds. We rode everything we wanted to ride multiple times, including the new fun Radiator Springs Racers. You have to plan ahead to ride this without a long wait, but I stood in line every morning to get Fast Passes and we were able to ride it with only a 15 minute wait instead of the posted standby line wait of 120-150 minutes. The favorite consensus ride among our family is Star Tours. We rode it multiple times and had a blast. William was even the "Rebel Spy" on one time through!
4 - World of Color at Disney's California Adventure is amazing. We saw it our last night at Disney and it was a great way to end the visit. Again, you need to plan a bit to get a good spot but ours was good and we really enjoyed the show.
5 - Our new strategy to drive back over two days was great. We drove from Anaheim to St. George on Friday and from St. George to Hyde Park on Saturday. Lots less pressure for us to hurry home and a much more relaxed drive.
Lowlights (because of course, there are some during a 9 day family trip):
1 - So Cal traffic. On the day of the Yankees game Jay, Philip and the boys went to a restaurant in the Pasadena area for lunch and then down to San Diego. It took them over three hours to drive what should have taken half that. They actually missed the first have of the first inning. It was crazy. Traffic was just busy most of the time - it made us really appreciate our Cache Valley traffic.
2 - Crowds at Disneyland - It was a summer visit and we expected crowds but it seemed even more crowded than our last visit. It wasn't unbearable or anything and we had a great time, but we noticed by 11 am every day it was really crowded. Thank goodness everyone in our family was on board with getting up early on vacation because it really paid off in terms of weather (overcast and cool) and the crowds.
3 - Motion sickness - Tessa got car sick on our way home. Bless her heart, she has learned her lesson not to eat Spicy Doritos in the car, that's for sure. She was fine afterwards though and fine for the rest of the way home. Jay suffered a bit on our first day at Disney - he made the mistake of riding California Screamin with Henry and had to sit out a few rides afterwards until he felt better.
4 - The mountain of laundry after a 9 day road trip. I even did two loads on the road but it still took me a while to catch up. Sigh. I hate doing laundry.
I'll post pictures when I get them organized and sorted. We used Photopass Plus at Disneyland so I have over 100 pictures that were taken of our family, including Tessa's official picture with Ariel at Ariel's Grotto and all the ride pictures from Splash Mountain, California Screamin, and Radiator Springs Racers. We get them all on a CD that is on it's way to our house as I type.
Next up, school starts! Yay!
No comments:
Post a Comment