Disney - Day 1

I thought long and hard about how I wanted to do my blog about our vacation, and I ultimately decided there was just too much to share to put into one entry...or two... so I am breaking our trip up by days! Hope you enjoy hearing about our travels :)



Day 1: Travel day

We all rose bright and early Wednesday morning with anticipation! Just kidding, that was cheezy huh?! We were up bright and early, but I don't know how much anticipation was going on. We were out the door before 8am, which is usually Maddie's wake up time. The only thing that saved us from having a complete grump on our hands was the arrival of Grama and Papa the night before!

We all said good-bye to Daisy and headed off to the airport. Quite honestly, this was the part of the trip I was MOST dreading. Getting 2 kids, 2 strollers, 2 grandparents (can we call them kids too?), a laptop, 2 cameras, and 4 carry-on bags all through security...well, you can understand my concern! Six pairs of shoes off and on later, we made it through unscathed and headed for our gate. The kids had a great time running around the airport and entertaining other passengers!

Soon it was time to get onboard. Now, I should point out a very important point: I HATE FLYING!!!! I mean I seriously, honestly, desperately hate to fly. I'm not scared of imminent death. I have (in my opinion, at least!) pretty severe motion sickness. My mom has it as well, but unfortunately, I have it worse. So add all the stress of 2 kids on a plane for the first time to my motion sickness and I was a nervous wreck. Maddie chose to sit in between Grama and Papa and Ben sat with us. I was very thankful that none of our flights were full and Ben was able to have a seat the whole way. That made it just that much easier to handle.

On Wednesday I learned something new about my daughter: Maddie is an AWESOME flier!!! She LOVED it! She wanted to look out at all the things in the window. She enjoyed playing with her cloth bunnies, eating treats, getting her very own cup of orange juice with lid and straw, and didn't even mind the landing! I am so very proud of her!!! ...and I'm so glad she got Joe's genes and not mine (on this point, at least ;)

Sitting on the plane was pretty torturous for Ben. He is a boy, and is "all boy" at that. He just didn't understand why he couldn't get up and run around, or climb all over everyone. Poor guy. I feel for him...I don't like to sit on a plane that long either! But as we left Washington for Oregon, he climbed into my lap and fell fast alseep :)

We landed in Ontario, California around 2:30pm. The weather was beautiful with sun and white fluffy clouds. The mountains were georgous and just as I remembered them. It felt like coming home and entering a dream all at the same time. We love and miss California!!!!!

There was a little mix up at Budget when dad and I went to get our rental car (hint to Budget: Suburbans and minivans are NOT the same size!), but it ended up working out ok. We picked everyone up, found places for all the bags and headed to the best fast food restaurant on the planet: In N Out!!!! Just the name makes my mouth water. YUM! After a really good pick-me-up we headed down to Anaheim!

For anyone planning a trip to Disneyland, let me give you this piece of advice: GO IN THE WINTER!!!! I am sure in my future posts this will come up again and again. Seriously, forget the summer. There are so many advantages to going at this time, I can't even begin to tell you. Least of which is that we got a 2-bedroom suite directly across the street from Disneyland for $189/night. Now that's a deal! It only took us about 10 minutes to walk to the front gates!

We settled into our rooms, ran to Target for some last minute items, and hit the sack. The kids, I think being overly tired AND overly excited, did NOT go to sleep well at all. After an hour of fighting it, Joe and I gave in. Joe took Ben and I took Maddie and we cuddled up for a...not so cozy nights' sleep. Thank goodness for coffee!