Here’s the story.  Josh and I have been toying around with the idea of taking the family to California for a getaway for a year. We started getting serious about it this spring (ironically, right after we got home from Europe), but the drive was just so long, and other similar excuses. So we kind of tabled the idea–though Josh and I would each periodically bring it up in a half-serious way.

Then one day, everything changed.  We were talking about vacations in some way when Fay leaned over to Carter and uttered these words: “We only go on big trips with grandparents.”

That was it. We officially had to up our game as parents. So, we immediately set the plans in motion and within the month we were in California. The kids were so excited about the prospect of Disneyland and the beach and it was infectious! We were all counting down the days ’til we could finally go!

Here’s how it went down.

We left home at about 10:30 AM because Fay had dance that morning and her recital is quickly approaching. Josh had been so excited that he personally detailed the entire car and packed everything to perfection in preparation for the trip. The kids had a box of toys, their own coloring notebooks, and colors. We all had loads of snacks–healthy and unhealthy. So off we went.

Remember how I mentioned one of our biggest hang-ups about going to California was that it was a long drive. Well, let me tell you, it was a VERY long drive. We got set back about 3 hours because of traffic just past the border into California and by the time we got to our hotel at 10 something Pacific time, we were WAY DONE! Josh and I were cranky and when we woke the kids up they were super cranky UNTIL they got to the hotel room. Our kids LOVE hotel rooms. It took quite a while to get them settled down for the night. But finally we all fell asleep.

And woke up bright and early the next morning. We were, naturally, too excited to sleep very late! We had a delicious breakfast at our hotel and made it to Disneyland just a few minutes after it opened! We went on five rides in the first hour or so we were there! Fay was really good at waiting in line for the first half of the day. Portia and Carter really didn’t care much for lines, but loved the rides!

But there’s more than just rides at Disneyland! Fay and I waited and waited and waited to meet Moana! She’s only been a thing for 6 months and yet Fay has more Moana stuff than any other single princess but Sofia.
Fay met other characters, too, but you might get bored of seeing all the pictures, so I’ll only do the major highlights.

We also enjoyed dinner at the “Red Rose Tavern” which was charmingly decorated like the tavern in Beauty and the Beast–complete with large framed-with-antlers picture of Gaston. It even had decent food! But the Fay and Portia were so tired they hardly ate. Carter took a 3 hour nap during the day, so he enjoyed it all quite thoroughly! Sorry no picture; we must have been too hungry to think of photographing it.

We took the kiddos back to the hotel and we all settled down for the night, except Josh who couldn’t bare to waste a single minute of Disneyland. He ran back while the kids and I slept and went on all the fun big-kid rides. Apparently he got really decent wait times and even got to see some fireworks!

 

The next day we woke up a little less early, had breakfast, slowly got ready and made it to California Adventure about an hour after open. We still managed to go on a lot of rides (thanks to the overcast, slightly chilly weather, I imagine) and see someone very special!

Carter’s favorite ride the last time we came (with grandparents…) was King Triton’s Carousel of the Sea. He rode it at least 10 times while we were there. So we had to go back. Portia was the one who really loved the carousels this time! Maybe it’s a one-year old thrill.

Then we hopped in a line to see the one and only Princess Elena of Avalor. Fay wore her Elena dress and got Elena to sign her coloring notebook. She was super excited about meeting this princess and Elena made sure to spend a good chunk of time with her. She was a very happy girl.

Meeting Elena was a big highlight for Fay, and while Elena really is a great princess (with a super cool theme song–check it out!) she is not the someone special I mentioned earlier. There is one character who has more love and adoration from one of our children than any other.

Carter met Mater!

Also, Portia met this tractor.

Fay really did love everything at the Disney parks; but there is no question as to her true love.

We were all tuckered out by the end of the second day, too! Josh didn’t even go back after the kids were asleep because he was too tired.

Friday was our beach day. We chose to do it the last day because it was finally sunny and warm. But we woke up to an unexpected complication. Portia threw up. We heard her making noises like throwing up as she was waking up, but it didn’t look too bad, so we wrote it off as just a weird thing. She didn’t want to eat much at breakfast and then threw up on the carpet of the hotel room when we got back.

So, we arranged with the hotel to have the carpets, etc. cleaned. Then we stopped at a laundromat to wash Portia’s clothes and blanket. THEN we went to the beach. She threw up a few more times (always on Josh, never on me), but was a really good sport at the beach and we all were able to have a lot of fun.

I love the beach! I miss living close to a beach. Maybe we’ll just move back to North Carolina so we can go to the beach more often. Something I love about the beach is that you can do as much or as little as you feel up to without a whole lot of extra prep. You can just relax on the sand and enjoy the waves on the shore, or you can play in the water, chase the waves, make sand castles, grab mud and throw it on your kids feet (Carter loved that game!), have races through the water, etc.

 

Anyway, after the beach, we went home, got cleaned up (from sand, salt-water, and more throw-up) then had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. Portia ate like there was no tomorrow. We tried to give her a tiny bit of our rice (complying with the BRAT diet), but she kept stealing more rice off our plates, and ate the majority of my rice. She kept it all down, though, so that’s good!

Then we went to Downtown Disney.

We told the kids they could each get one toy from Disneyland. Carter got a “Fabulous Hudson Hornet” from Lizzie’s shop in Cars Land, but Fay was too busy going on Radiator Springs Racers to look for a toy then (plus, she didn’t want a car, believe it or not). So we took her back to the big Disney store to choose something. Josh also chose a toy, but his was from the Lego store! He got an X-Wing kit. He has already put it together!

After that, we turned in for our last night in California. We woke up Saturday, and got on the road as soon as we could, which ended up not being that soon. But we didn’t run into any huge traffic jams on the way home!

Josh started feeling sick to his stomach on the drive home, and Portia threw up all over herself about 45 minutes before we got home (we definitely just made her sit in it the rest of the way because we so desperately wanted to be done driving). And Carter woke up throwing up this morning. But even with all the sickness, and that drive that really was as long as we feared it would be, we are so glad we went on our family vacation! We’re glad that we, as well as our kids, know that we can go on a super fun trip without grandparents! (Though, I must note that this does NOT mean we don’t love going on trips with grandparents! We’ll take all the fun trips we can get!)