California Trip

Our first far-away, get on a plane, family vacation was this year to California. I was already in California where I had taken the HOSA students to National Competition in Anaheim and so at the conclusion of the conference the students flew home and Jeremy and the girls joined me in Anaheim. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to fly down with them on the girls' FIRST airplane ride, but according to Jeremy... I didn't miss much. Rylee didn't even really know she was on a plane and Abbie thought it was fun to look out the window so it sounded like it was easy and uneventful. That was good for dad since he was traveling solo. When I saw them get off the plane I was teary-eyed. I had missed them so much for the last 6 days that I was ecstatic to see them. The first night in California we just settled into our Disneyland Hotel and went to eat dinner and then headed back to the room for a early night so we could start early the next day at California Adventure. 

Rylee's First Picture in California. Goofy was inside the Paradise Pier Hotel. She wasn't scared of the character if he was made of plastic.

Monday morning we started early at California Adventure. Abbie and I jumped on our first ride, 'Soarin' California', while Jeremy and Rylee opted for a bench in the shade. Both of us enjoyed the hang-gliding over all the California sites with the wind in our hair and the different smells filling the air. At the end of our vacation Soarin' California was still our favorite ride!! The next ride of the morning was what Abbie had been talking about for weeks, the Tower of Terror. I tried once more to talk her out of it, but she wanted nothing of it. Jeremy decided to take her on the ride since I thought it sounded less than wonderful. Jeremy's exact words were, "How long can it last?" Little did any of us know but the elevator doesn't just drop once from the top, instead it goes up and falls a few floors, and then back to the top again and falls some more. Rylee and I had managed to find a bench at the exit of the ride and waited patiently. When we saw Abbie she was white as could be and wasn't smiling. Jeremy started to laugh as soon as he saw us and said that Abbie had quite a death grip on his arm during the whole ride. Abbie admitted that the Tower of Terror wasn't very fun and that she didn't want to go on it again. Jeremy continued to kid with her about that ride for the rest of the vacation, but she was a good sport.

We spent the rest of the day riding all sorts of rides at California Adventure that we could all ride on together.

Rylee didn't like living Disney characters so she hid behind my leg while Abbie took pictures with Mickey.

We partook in the Disneyland tradition of buying a pair of mouse ears on our first day there.

Abbie picked out princess ears while Rylee picked out pirate ears. Boy, don't those fit their personality...couldn't have picked out more appropriate ears if we would have done it for them.

Even Dad wanted a part of the mouse ears!

We decided to go back to the hotel for some time in the pool to cool down and relax a bit. The hotel pools were amazing. The girls picked the spray park and waterslide pool as their favorite. I enjoyed lounging in the 3 foot water while they played right around us. Occasionally we took a break from the spray park to go sit in the hot tub shaped like Minne's head. The pool cooled us down so we could go back and get ready for our evening plans.

We headed back to California Adventure to watch a water and light show accompanied with music and graphics called 'World of Color.' It was a beautiful show that told a story of all the Disney characters the girls were familiar with. The girls seemed captivated by the show but I still may have liked it even more than they did!

The girls standing and waiting for 'World of Color' to start

The conclusion of the show

On our third day in California we headed to one of the highlights of our trip, Breakfast with the Princesses. Abbie's love right now is the princesses and that is all that she can talk about. Last year her favorite princess was Sleeping Beauty so I packed her costume so she could look just like her. Here current favorite princess is Rapunzel, but because Rapunzel wasn't at the breakfast she was happy with just seeing the classic princesses. Abbie may have been a little overwhelmed because she was quite during the actual breakfast but talked a lot about it once we left.

We were greeted by Ariel and then were seated and were almost immediately served breakfast. Once breakfast was served the princesses started coming out to each table. Each princess would stop at every table, sign autographs, and get a picture.

 

Abbie and Aurora

Rylee would only take a picture with Belle, maybe that is her favorite princess??

After we were finished with the breakfast with the princesses we finished up all the rides that we wanted to go on at California Adventure. We went on all the rides that Abbie wanted to go on and all the rides that Rylee could go on.  Once we had done everything we wanted at California Adventure, we went to Disneyland. We started at Disneyland with all the classic rides close to the front entrance such as Snow White, Peter Pan, Dumbo, etc. Abbie and I went on Big Thunder Mountain and when it was finished I expected her to have a similar reaction to Tower of Terror. Instead she thought it was lots of fun and wanted to go on it again. After a few hours of rides we decided to find a spot along the street, buy an ice cream, and watch the parade. The girls loved the parade. It was so fun to watch the smiles on their faces!

Waiting for the parade

 

Abbie's favorite float in the parade...Rapunzel of course!

After the parade we decided to ride the train around the park and then took the monorail to Downtown Disney and back to our hotel. We did a little more swimming and then talked about what we should do for dinner. Jeremy had forgotten it was my birthday until I reminded him at dinner time so I was able to pick anywhere I wanted to go. I chose Bubba Gumps. I told Jeremy it was just a short walk away, like 10 minutes. He suggested we take the car and I told him that it would probably be quicker to walk. After we were walking for 45 minutes and I was carrying Rylee sound asleep, I finally found Bubba Gumps after a few wrong turns. Jeremy was less than impressed but thankfully the food was great and the walk back was really only 10 minutes since now I knew where we were going.

Wednesday we headed back to Disneyland to did a whole bunch of rides as a family. We started with the submarine ride, Small World, Winnie the Pooh, and the list goes on and on. Abbie and I stopped at Splash Mountain but the wait was 2 hours. Abbie decided that was too long of a wait for a ride that Jeremy and Rylee couldn't go on. We will be back to Disneyland so decided we would wait until the 4 of us would go on it together.

We stopped for lunch in Toon Town and found lots of characters to take pictures with...

 

After the Jungle Cruise ride we stopped to get a drink and rest in the shade. Abbie took lots of pictures while we relaxed. The only place in the shade we could find to sit was right outside the men's bathroom...what a great backdrop!!

The plan for Wednesday was to drive up to San Diego when we were finished with Disneyland. We were having such a great time at Disney that we hated to leave. We decided that we would stay and watch the parade again since the girls seemed to like it so much. While we were waiting for the parade, I told the girls that they could go pick out a souvenir, anything they wanted, to remember their first trip to Disneyland. We left Jeremy in the shade, a perfect place for parade watching, and went to the shops near the entrance of Disneyland for our souvenir shopping. It was here that we found several characters for more pictures...

 

While we were shopping we saw Mickey Mouse walk by and that is when Rylee had a magical moment with Mickey. We stepped outside of the store, just in front of Mickey. He stopped, bent down right at Rylee's height, and rubbed his hand gently down the side of Rylee's face then walked on. We went back in to finish our shopping (our souvenirs ended up being a stuffed Minnie for Abbie, a stuffed Mickey for Rylee, and red Minnie dresses and flip flops for both girls) and all Rylee could talk about was Mickey. Mickey touched her. She liked Mickey. She wanted to see Mickey again. Thankfully we walked outside and there was Mickey to take pictures with.

It may have taken the whole vacation, but finally Rylee was willing to take pictures with living Disney characters.

We took this picture by the sign as we were leaving the park. We should have probably taken it at the beginning of our trip but we did make lots of memories here at Disneyland!! Where's Rylee?

Disneyland pooped Rylee out! Off to San Diego!

We got to San Diego but Rylee was still reminiscing about Disneyland...

 

Thursday morning, our fifth day in California, we slept in a just had a relaxing morning laying in bed and watching cartoons. We had had many long days and late nights and all of us could use the relaxing time. After a lazy morning we headed to the beach. Jeremy's brother had told us about a nice beach and so we packed a picnic lunch and off we went. When we got there we expected the girls to want to play in water for hours. Instead they thought the water was freezing and didn't really want to have much to do with it. Not what I was expecting for their first beach experience although I agreed that the water was freezing and the breeze off the water was cool too. We stayed long enough to eat lunch and build several sand castles then headed back to the hotel for a swim in the HEATED pool!

On Friday we were up early again for one of the things Jeremy and I were looking forward to the most...Sea World. Jeremy and I remember Sea World being an amazing experience and a place that we both loved. We were disappointed to find that Sea World has become very commercialized with carnival-like games everywhere, however it didn't stop us from enjoying all of the performances. We got our schedule right as the gates opened and mapped out our day so we would be sure not to miss anything.

Abbie liked the dolphin and pet show the best. While Rylee's favorite seemed to be the pet show with all of the animal tricks.

Waiting for a show

Shamu

One of my favorites at Sea World is the up-close and personal seal experience. As you stand close I like to hear them bark at you as they want you to feed them. They have such funny personalities that I could stand there all day.

Our last full day in California was spent at the San Diego Zoo. The zoo is huge so we got a map and decided what we all really wanted to see. The girls decided they wanted to see the elephants, the panda, giraffes, koalas, the alligator, and the list goes on and on. By about 2 pm we decided that we had seen enough of the zoo by foot so we opted for the 2 tier bus. Jeremy convinced all of us to sit on the top level of the bus, and while it was hot, it was well worth it. We were able to see things on the bus that we either didn't walk to or that weren't out when we did go by it earlier. The tiger, the polar bears, and the rhino made for a great zoo experience.

After the bus ride we went back to the hotel for the last swim in our California hotel. We swam and then had promised the girls dinner at McDonalds (yay, our only time the whole trip). After McDonalds we drove around San Diego just doing some last minute sight-seeing. Jeremy happened to stop at a pull-out that was close to the beach. Once we got out and started to walk down towards the water we realized it was a beautiful setting. We were able to get close to the beach, look for shells and crawdads, and watch to water crash up on the rocks. It was a beautiful find for the end of our vacation.

While we were all sad at our vacation coming to a close, we were ready to head home. We were up early Saturday morning and drove back to Anaheim to catch our plane. 

The way that Rylee rides through the airport

 

Headed back to GF after the BEST FAMILY VACATION EVER!!