Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Family Vacation to California


We had a great time on our family vacation this past month. It was kind of a spur of the moment trip for us. James needed to go to San Jose, California for his work and we decided it would be fun for the whole family to go with him this time. His work paid for our gas there and back and for the hotel for the week. So that was really nice! We stayed for a few extra days so we could go to Disneyland and see some more of California while we were there.

We left on Monday and drove all day to San Jose. The kids did a great job so the drive wasn't too bad. We had a meltdown around dinner time and again for the last few minutes of the drive but overall it wasn't too terrible.

We stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn in their Penthouse Suite so we had very comfortable living arrangements. We had a bedroom/bathroom upstairs overlooking the downstairs which had another bedroom/living room/kitchen/bathroom. They had complimentary breakfast and dinner at the hotel too. The kids loved the swimming pool the most! We spent most of our time there.
We went swimming in the pool every day. Most days we went in the morning, again after lunch and sometimes after dinner too. The kids loved it!

Tuesday we drove into San Francisco to see the sights there. We stopped by Lombard Street, which is famous for being so twisty. Here is a picture of James and the kids with Lombard Street in the background. You can see how steep and curvy it is.

Wednesday afternoon the kids and I headed out to Half Moon Bay. We wanted to go to a beach nearby and this one seemed the prettiest from the pictures I saw of it. It was beautiful and I'm so glad we chose to go there. We had the beach mostly to ourselves and had fun playing in the water and burying ourselves in the sand. I loved this picture of Darcy cheesing it for the camera.
No vacation would be complete without a muscle shot of the guys!

Darcy was a little afraid of the waves rolling in. I thought she might like them more if she knew they were coming and called to them. James snapped this picture of us calling to the waves to "come here". She still ran away once the waves got to us. But eventually she overcame her fear and loved the water.

Thursday night the kids just wanted to swim in the pool with Dad. He missed out on most of the pool time since we did it while he was at work. So we wanted to have some swim time with Dad there too.

Friday was James last day at work so we had to check out of that hotel at 1pm. So we packed up our stuff Friday morning and met James at about 2 pm when he got done with work. We drove to Santa Cruz where we spent the afternoon/evening. It was a cool place. They have a huge boardwalk with shops and a huge amusement park right on the beach. We didn't go on any rides since we were heading to Disneyland in a few days. But we played on the beach and saw the sea lions on the pier. For dinner we went to a pizza/pasta bar that was delicious. It was a nice restaurant but very kid friendly. They brought out a ball of pizza dough for each of the kids to play with. (Great idea by the way! It kept the kids entertained all night!) Then when we were almost finished with our meal all the staff did a show where they had a guy doing really amazing pizza throwing and everyone was dancing around the restaurant. It was really fun. I should have taken some pictures of it but I didn't think of it at the time.

After dinner we drove for a few hours down to San Luis Obispo where we stayed the night. In the morning we went swimming in the pool for a few hours. When it was time to check out of our hotel we headed to Pismo Beach for the afternoon. We were not alone in that idea. It was so crowded at that beach! But we still had a great time. We got a boogie board so the kids could try their hand at body surfing. They also really liked digging holes in the sand and running in the waves.

After having all the fun we could handle at the beach we headed down to Anaheim where we stayed that night. We were in a hotel just a couple of blocks away from Disneyland. It was very nice and had a great pool. So we swam a little that night and then again the next day.

Sunday we checked out of the hotel and went to my cousin house. Jen and Bob live about 20 minutes from Disneyland. We spent the afternoon visiting with them. Our kids had so much fun playing with their kids. We spent the night with their family and then headed to Disneyland in the morning.

Disneyland was awesome! We went on quite a few rides in the morning together. By about lunch time Cody and Darcy were hot and tired. So we called Jen and she came and picked them up and took them home for naps. Jen was a lifesaver! It was so nice to have her take the little ones so we could have fun with the older kids. Dallin and Shelby really loved going on the rides. I thought they might be too scared to do the big rides, but they weren't! We went on almost all of the big rides and quite a few other ones too.


I called Jen a few times throughout the afternoon to check on the kids. They both slept for about 4 hours! So they were very tired. When Cody woke up Jen asked him if he wanted to go back to Disneyland. He said, "No, it's hot there. I want to stay here and play with Jack." So Jen kept them until after dinner and rush hour and then brought them back to Disneyland. We met her at Downtown Disney which is outside the park. There is a Lego store there which lured us in. They have some amazing things built out of Legos. The kids loved the life sized Darth Vader that was built out of Legos. After the Lego Store we rode the Monorail back into Disneyland.
By this time it was getting dark and I realized we hadn't even taken a picture of our whole family together yet. So we had someone take it for us in front of the Castle. It was so dark the picture didn't turn out very well, but oh well. The shows they did at night were really cool. We watched Fantasmic, which is a show they do on the water and island. It was really cool. Then we saw the firework show as well. There were so many people there that night that it was very crowded and hard to get around. But we still enjoyed the shows and headed to the hotel after that. It was a great day but we were sure glad to get back to our hotel and rest!

The next day we swam in the pool again and then went to Jen's house to return her stroller and pick up the things we left at her house the day before. Then we drove to Las Vegas and stayed the night there. The next morning we headed home and arrived around 2 pm.

It was a great trip. The only negative was that we had a round of stomach flu hit most of us at one time or another. But luckily it usually hit during the night and ended around lunch time so it wasn't too terrible. I think we drove about 2,200 miles on our trip. I was worried Darcy would go crazy on the way home after so much driving but she did pretty well.

Below is a slideshow with some additional pictures from our trip.

4 comments:

Cherringtons said...

Love it!! Im glad you were able to go and spend some time together and go to Disneyland. I can't wait till my girls are old enough to go!

Pierce + Stacy Thiot said...

Cute!!!! I love it. My favorite is the picture of you and Darce calling to the waves...

Tyler & Nikki said...

That looks like you had such a great time. Sounds like everything went super smooth, well other than the stomach flu. Bummer.

Lo said...

Holy cow - your pictures always turn out so good! I love the one of Darcy cheesing it and I love your hat! Looks so cute on you. Can't wait to see you soon :)
Love,
Lo

Funny Quotes

  • Darcy came up to me the other day with a permanent marker and said, "Mom, is it okay if I use this pregnant marker to draw a picture?" January 2012
  • Darcy was in a bubble bath the other day having a great time. She made a beard out of bubbles and put bubbles on her head to make herself look like Santa. When it was time to clean off the bubbles I parted the bubbles to get down to the clear water and she said, "Oh, I didn't know there was water down there!" December 2011
  • Darcy calls hangnails or snags on her nails "Pinchies". She says "Mom, can you get this pinchie off my toe?"
  • Whenever we do something fun Darcy always says, "Lets to dat adain." I love her little voice when she says it.
  • Every morning Cody comes into my room while I'm still in bed and tells me, "Mom, it's light outside. It's time to get up." To which I reply, "Okay, let me get dressed." So now when Cody is getting dressed and I call to him his response is, "I'm getting my dressed on!" I love it. No more getting dressed at our house...its now know as "getting our dressed on".
  • I like to make fruit smoothies for breakfast sometimes. Cody calls them Smoot Moolies, so that has become the name for them at our house. The other day when I was making a smoot moolie Cody asked if he could help me make it. I said he could so he jumped up on the counter and picked up a banana. He proceed to peel it and then handed me the peel and said,"Here's the armpit mom." I wasn't sure if I heard him right so I asked him what it was called. He said, "The armpit...you know the thing that the banana is in." November 2009
  • This afternoon when we were driving to the store I had a funny conversation with Cody. “Does Matt have a house?” Cody asked. “Well, Matt is here to buy a new house.” I replied. “Ooooo, that sounds fun!”Cody said. About a minute passes and then he says “How is he going to carry it?” I’m trying my hardest not to laugh. “I think he needs a big rope.” Cody said, happy that he figured out a good solution to the problem. I just love Cody…he keeps me laughing all the time. January 21, 2010
  • I was really tired one afternoon so I flopped down on the couch and said, "I'm pooped out!" Cody came over and snuggled up to me on the couch and said, "I'm having poop time too!" July 2009
  • When I told the kids that James was going to be going to California, Cody sat up straight and excitedly said, "Like Lightening McQueen! He went to California!" October 2009
  • The other day James said to Cody, "How's my buddy?" Cody got a very serious look on his face and said, "Name's Tody!" (He still can't pronounce C's very well.) The only things he will let us call him, other than his name, is big boy or funny kid.
  • When we were first potty training Cody he said he needed to go to the bathroom during sacrament meeting at church. So I took him to the bathroom and sure enough he did his business in the toilet. This was one of the first times he ever did poops in the toilet so he was really excited. When we walked back into sacrament meeting (we were sitting near the front of the chapel) he loudly proclamed "Daddy, I did giant poops in the toilet!" December 2008
  • Cody comes up with cute names for things. Mostly because he has troubles prononcing some of his letters. Some of my favorite names are "Daddy's Toke-Toke" for Coke, "Dr. Seuse" for Dr. Pepper, the "lurnal" for urinal, and "peanutbutter jam" for peanutbutter mixed with honey in a bowl.
  • Shelby had a hard time saying her G's when she was little. So we were working with her on how to say Grandma. She could make a growling sound pretty well, so we we had her growl then say grandma, so she used her best growling voice to say "GRRRR AMA"
  • The sun was shining in Cody's eyes the other day and he pointed at it and said, "Mommy, that circle is burnin' my eyes!" January 2009
  • Heres a list of funny words our kids have come up with for things: Fwaps (Cody's word for patting Darcy's back), bednight snacks, square noodles (ramen noodles), peeps, giant poops, dishwasher (Cody says this is where we wash clothes), low-low (lawn mower), regular grandma (Shelby's way of describing the difference between Great Grandma and her (regular) Grandma, oopadaisy (Shelby)
  • When we were building our house Shelby and Dallin spent a lot of time here with me working on it. One day when I was putting up the finish trim I couldn't find the hammer. I was looking all over for it and just didn't have any luck finding it. Shelby (2 yrs old) made two fists with her little hands and said, "It's okay Mommy, you can use my bammers!" November 2005
  • When Dallin was 1 yr old, he used to love making car noises. His favorite noise to make was the sound of tires screeching and then a crash. So EVERY time we would apply the brakes in the car we would hear his little voice from the back seat..."errrr kshhhh"
  • When Dallin was about 3 years old, he always liked to sit between James and I on the couch. But his way of saying it was cute. He would say "Can I sit in the tween of you?"
  • When Dallin was about 4 years old, I let him and Shelby skip naps because we needed to go somewhere. As we were driving on the road Dallin said, "Wow, look at all these people who are skipping naps too!" I guess he thought everyone had naps during the afternoon! Summer 2005