Californ-I-A

My entire side of the family went to California for a fun family trip together. My parents were SO awesome to give this to all of us as an early Christmas gift and it was the best. All of my siblings, their spouses and their kids came including my two grandmas (my grandpas have been dead for about 14 years, so my two cute grandmas do everything with our family). We left on a Saturday and traveled to Vegas to stay overnight. We were supposed to stay with my sister Rachel, but her kids ended up being sick and no one wanted to catch what they had, so we stayed in a hotel.Kids just love hotels.... why is that? I hate them, especially Vegas Casino ones that stink. Yuck!

Sunday we went to church with Andy's aunt that lives in Vegas and then we continued on our journey to California. We got there late Sunday night and stayed at the Candy Cane Inn. Such a cute, nice little place. We loved it.

DISNEYLAND

It was Halloween at Disneyland. I have never been there in October, and it was so much fun and decorated so cute. They change some rides to go along with Halloween and we loved it, it was great.

We got up bright and early to be able to get to Disneyland right when they opened. We didn't want to miss a minute of the fun! None of my kids have ever been and to say they were excited is an understatement. They were in awe and couldn't look everywhere fast enough trying to take it all in. It was so exciting for them to see characters and go meet them. Daphne loved them far away, but she didn't like getting her picture with them very much.
She refused to get a picture unless I would hold her.

They loved all the rides and wanted to go on everything again right after they would get off. I had to explain several times that there were more fun rides, so we would go on stuff again after we did everything.
Bear loved the "dishwasher" in Minnie's house. He sat and watched it over and over for about 10 minutes until I dragged him out.

make a wish in the wishing well!


The girls absolutely LOVED Sleeping Beauty's Castle and we went through it several times

The kids were chosen to participate in the "Toy Story" soldier drill

My 3 little bugs

I don't know what they think they're going to find in Lightning McQueens mouth...

Tower of Terror! This is easily my most favorite ride in California Adventure. I LOVE it! Okay, so funny story.... Laylah is absolutely fearless. She will go on anything. Jonah.... not so much, he is scared of almost everything and won't even try it if he thinks it will be scary. Daphne's pretty good to do whatever, but if she doesn't like it, she won't do it again. So, they had all been really good about trying all the rides and going on whatever we got in line for. Well, we decided to take them all on Tower of Terror. If you've been on this ride, you'll know why this is funny. It is terrifying! But also tons of fun. They take you up like 13 stories and then drop you repeatedly. Okay, so the whole time we're in line Jonah keeps asking if it's scary. (We're mean parents) We kept telling him he'd just have to see. Finally when it was almost our turn to get on he decideds he doesn't want to go. I tell him that if he goes he won't ever have to go again. He agrees and we get on the ride. We sat like this- Andy, Daphne, Jonah, then me. Laylah sat with my mom because I knew she would love it and wouldn't be scared. So anyway, we start the ride and Daph and Jo are holding hands. As soon as we drop the first time, their faces were PRICELESS and they let go of each other's hands and are just flapping them like little birds- they both bury their heads into me and Andy and they are freaking out!! Andy and I meanwhile are cracking up laughing like crazy. It was really so funny and after the ride Daph and Jo were a little mad at us. Luckily they are kids and they forgive quickly. But every time we mentioned going on that ride again they would immediately answer "No, I don't want to go on that!!" Laylah loved it and went 3 more times on our trip.

Cute, tired girls

At the end of the first day we went back to the hotel and swam. I don't know what it is, but when you stay in a hotel, you have to go swimming at least once. I forgot to bring my camera swimming, but I'm sure you get the idea :)

Kind of a bummer- after the first day at Disneyland that night, Baron woke up sick, throwing up and with diarrhea. It was horrible. Andy gave him a blessing, and the next day he was good to go. We didn't take him on anything until that afternoon though, and he was fine thank goodness. My wonderful sister Suzanne was tired and took him back to the hotel for us around dinnertime for a nap so we could stay and play with the other kids.

P.S. I don't know if you've noticed in any pictures, but I got my hair done a few days before our trip and had my stylist cut bangs.... I needed a change. What do you think?!My cute sister Kaylie is such a goof. She carried around her bag of homework all day and would study whenever she got a chance. She wasn't even going to come because of school, but we made her! It was funny to see her with a big bag of books at Disneyland.


The treats at Disneyland are the BEST!

Watchout Mom and Daph! Laylah and Andy are coming!

Such tired kids. Having fun is hard work!

SEA WORLD

We went to Sea World the last day we were there. I hadn't been there in years. The kids L-O-V-E-D it! They were so excited to see everything. We went to all the shows, saw some amazing sea creatures, were able to touch some sea creatures, and also feed them. They also had some fun rides.

This Shamu show was amazing! I couldn't believe the awesome things they were able to teach these killer whales to do. Unfortunately, we sat in the splash zone. Andy had the camera out and.... you guessed it- we got SOAKED, and our camera is ruined. I mean soaked literally from head to toe. All the kids started bawling (I think they said the water the whales swim in is 52 degrees) We sat in the splash zone because we really didn't think we'd get that wet. Ummmm, we did. We missed out on a lot of fun pictures of the rest of the day after this show. Oh well. AND after going through all my pictures, I realized that I didn't get a picture of my entire family all together on this trip. Such a bummer. What do ya do?

After Sea World closed we headed back to Vegas for the night. We were able to stay at Rachel's this time thankfully. The next day we relaxed and I did some of my Vegas clients' hair. Friday we got up bright and early so we could make it home in time for some things we had going on. It was such a wonderful, fun, memorable trip. I'm so glad I was able to spend time with all of my family. I LOVE my family. Thanks mom and dad for the best Christmas present! We had SO much fun!