It seems like I have been planning our first big family vacation for months and it is already over. I am a little sad. I can't believe how fast it went by. Now it has taken me almost a week to finish this blog entry.
Let me start by saying we had an AWSOME time! Some of you may not know ... our daycare was closed the week of Jun11th (her daughter graduated from high school so she took her New York for vacation). So we decided to plan our vacation for that time. Origianlly I really wanted to go to Maui, it would have bee during peak time and everything was really expensive. We threw around a bunch of vacation ideas and finally decided that we would spend a few day in Orange County and go to Disneyland and the beach and stuff. This way we didn't need to fly anywhere, but we would still get away.
We left Tuesday 6/12 and we drove up the coast. We stopped for lunch then we went to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana. That was really neat, Grace had a great time running around and exploring everything. After a couple of hours there we headed over to our hotel to check in. We were staying at the Doubletree Guest Suites down the street from Disneyland. The hotel was really great. The staff could not have been nicer, the room was great and the beds were comfy. We decided to go swimming for a little while. We tried out Grace's new arm floaties. She hasn't been in a big swimming pool since last summer so I wasn't sure how she would do. She loved it! At first she was a little clingy but soon got comfortable and didn't want to get out. The rest of the week she stood at the window of the room and looked out at the pool and whined waaaterrrr, waaaterrr!
The next morning we got up bright and early and were at Disneyland's gates before opening at 9:00 am. First stop was City Hall for a button for Grace that said "1st visit" then it was on to our Minnie and friends breakfast. Breakfast didn't go as well as I had planned. Grace saw the characters from across the room and she excitedly waved and said hi ... then the got closer. She FREAKED! Needless to say we shoved our breakfast down and got out of there as quick as possible.
The rest of the days at the parks weres a blur of rides. Grace rode EVERYTTHING and loved it. Here is a list of all the rides we went on in the 2-1/2 days: Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Carribean, Winnie the Pooh, Flik's Flyer, Heimlich's Chew Chew, Small World, King Arthur's Carousel (5 times), Buzz Lightyear, Dumbo, Casey Jr. Circus Train, Pinocchio, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Storybook Boats, Monsters Inc., Goofy's House, Roger Rabbit, Golden Zephyer, Sun Wheel, and King Triton's Carousel ... Whew! We also caught the parade one night, Grace was in awe by that as long as the character's didn't come too close.
Friday afternoon my mom came down and picked up Grace and kept her overnight so Tim and I could ride the "big" rides. We had a blast! It was so fun that ee ended up splurging for annual passes while we were there. I can't wait to go back in the fall. By the time we hit the bed Friday night we were exhausted. We had so much fun!
Here is a link to a small portions of our photos from the trip, Enjoy!
http://photosmart.hpphoto.com/FilmStripHome.aspx?JobID=2bdbb7bc-78ac-4243-bb90-7363dd8910fb&SKU=HP
