Vacation (Part 1)

So I have been a major blog slacker lately. Yeah, I know – how many times do I start that way? Uh, pathetic. Oh, well. At least it has been for good reason.

We went on vacation the second week in October – I know, it’s almost Halloween so I’m really behind, but at least I’m getting around to posting about it now. I have to – otherwise I will forget this stuff by the time I go to scrapbook it. So this is going to be a VERY long post. And I think I am only going to get through the first few days of vacation… So there will be more long posts to follow :) I don’t blame you if you just skip though to the pictures :)

Saturday, 10-8
We left for California at 3:00AM. It really wasn’t hard to get up – I think we were all excited. Aurora heard us putting stuff in the car and woke up and wouldn’t go back to sleep. It was pretty cute – you could tell that she knew she wasn’t supposed to be awake and that this was all out of the ordinary – she seemed pretty excited. She did fall asleep about 40 minutes into the drive at least, so she wasn’t up for the whole time. She didn’t sleep as well as I would have liked, but it was still better than trying to drive during the day – she would have grumped a large part of the time.

Everything was going pretty well with the drive until I got pulled over for speeding just outside of Phoenix. I didn’t think it was very nice – the cop was tailgating me and when I would move over so he could pass he wouldn’t. He was playing games. And it was dark so I couldn’t tell it was a cop. But he was pushing me to go faster. So needless to say – by the time he pulled me over I was going quite a bit over the limit. I got quite the lecture and it was pretty painful. In the end he let me go without a ticket or anything. I think it helped that the first question he asked was “Where are you going?” and my answer was “Disneyland.”

So I drove half of the way and Nick drove the other half. We got to our hotel before check in time so we walked to Downtown Disney while we waited. I was in my jammies and flip flops and we both felt like we needed a shower after the drive so it wasn’t ideal to be walking around in public, but oh well. We stopped in a couple of shops and tried Mickey ears on Aurora – she decided that she wanted nothing to do with hats this trip, so we never ended up buying ears for her :( And since I was wearing flip flops I accidentally kicked the stroller at one point and I’m fairly certain I broke my toe. It got super swollen and bruised and was pretty awful – not the best way to start a trip, but I lived :)

After we checked in at the hotel and got cleaned up we went to DISNEYLAND!!!!!! The first thing we did was get dinner at the burger place on the water over by Splash Mountain. I know – don’t you usually head to the rides first? But we were hungry and it was early so it wasn’t crowded yet – it was a lot more peaceful to eat and we watched the ducks – Aurora was fascinated. Then we went on “It’s a Small World.” Aurora has a good time in line and talked to all the strangers. She was really cute during the ride too – wide eyes and just stared. It’s a lot to take in for a little kid.







Then we went over to California Adventure to try to see the new World of Color show, but it turns out you have to fast pass it to get a good seat. So we decided to save it for Sunday night. We were exhausted anyway – Aurora was WAY over stimulated from all the cool stuff to look at and she refused to take a nap – so she was very cranky towards the end of the night. She did finally fall asleep as we were leaving CA Adventure, but only slept for like 30 minutes and then proceeded to stay up WAY past her bedtime once we got back to the hotel.

CA Adventure:


Hotel:


Sunday, 10-9
First thing we did was go to CA Adventure to fast pass the World of Color show. We actually got there right when it opened (didn’t plan it that way – we just decided that we weren’t waking Aurora up no matter what, so we just worked with her schedule). So it was super un-crowded – very nice. We went on the new Little Mermaid ride, which both Aurora and I loved, and on the carousel.



We also met Mickey! I wasn’t sure what to expect with Aurora and the characters, and I was certainly surprised. Not only did she LOVE them, but she was hilarious!!!!! She got soooooooooooo excited! She would straighten her arms and legs, kick and wave, and squeal uncontrollably. It was so funny. She was so excited. When we actually got close to them she calmed down and didn’t really know what to do, but at a distance she just went nuts. We tried to get it on video, but it was hard – we would wait too long and miss it or when we were ready she wouldn’t get as excited for that character. Silly girl – I think she just knew when the camera was there.



Over at Disneyland we went on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and that turned out to be Aurora’s favorite ride. She talked through the whole thing and bounced on Nick’s lap, trying to eat her laser blaster thing. Then after the ride she kept talking and clapping. Super cute. After that we got in line for the Nemo ride, and funny thing – I never thought I would ask to wait in line longer, but Aurora fell asleep halfway through the line and was asleep when we got to the front. We really wanted her to see it, so we asked if we could wait – and they were nice enough to let us wait off to the side until she woke up. It was so weird too – one second she was wide awake, the next she was conked out on my shoulder. At least she got over the “must stay awake and see everything.”



We also went on Roger Rabbit’s ride and Toad’s Wild ride. I think Aurora had kind of hit her limit on rides though – she wasn’t overly thrilled with either and she didn’t keep her food down that well after the Roger Rabbit one.

We got to meet Minnie at her house in Toontown – again Aurora went nuts :) And then we went over to CA Adventure to get a good seat for the World of color show. The show started at 9:00PM and Aurora stayed up until 8:55. Her bedtime is usually 7:30. So she stayed up way late, and then missed the cool stuff. It made me sad because I think she would have really liked it. The show was very pretty and unique. I really don’t know how she slept though it because it was super loud. Very well done though.



Monday, 10-10

A break from Disney to go to Universal Studios. Yeah, we found out that isn’t really a place for little kids, but we still had a good time. Fist thing we walked around City Walk a little. Aurora decided to ditch her hat somewhere along the way. Sneaky girl. We went back to look for it, but never found it. So we had to buy a dorky one at one of the vendors. It is hard to find baby hats! But she needed one – it was so sunny!



The good thing about Universal Studios was that they had so many characters walking around. Aurora had a blast getting to see Dora, Bart, Marge and Homer Simpson, Woody the Woodpecker and his girlfriend and so many others. Again her reactions were hilarious. Another nice thing is that they have the baby swap thing down! So Nick and I were able to ride the rides (the Simpson’s ride, Jurassic Park (just Nick – I’m so afraid of dinosaurs!) and the Mummy ride). They have a waiting area for the kids so one of you rides, then goes to the waiting area to take over baby duty and the other gets right on the ride. Disneyland could take some serious lessons – they kind of ticked me off. You basically have to wait in line twice. It used to be you would just pass the baby through, now they don’t let kids in the line (seriously, like I’m going to try to take my 8 month old on Space Mountain?)



We took Aurora on the tram ride tour and she was really well behaved considering it was a 45 minute ride. She got kind of tired and cranky at the end – thank goodness for crackers! We learned this trip that food is generally the key to keeping her happy. As long as she has something in her mouth she can’t use that mouth to fuss :) Fortunately her food is low calorie right now and she can afford those calories – won’t always be able to use that strategy :) The tram ride hasn’t changed a whole lot from what I remember from a long time ago. There are a few new things though – the King Kong part is now 4D and pretty intense (I was surprised it didn’t scare Aurora), and they have some new sets like the plane crash from War of the Worlds. It’s interesting to see, but it kind of ruins movies for me some. Like it’s sad that Skull Island from King Kong was all miniatures and green screen… It just changes movies for me some.



We also saw the 4D Shrek show and the Animal Actors show. Aurora was good for both of them, but she was more interested in the animal one. She was pretty talkative during that one…

After Universal Studios we got to have dinner at Bucca di Beppo with Aunt Jan, Uncle Nick, Bryan, and Darryl. We are lucky that they drove to City Walk to see us! We had fun and the food was super yummy. It was nice to relax after a long day and it was nice to have other people hold Aurora. My arms were sooooo tired already! We basically had to hold her all day every day. It was a good thing we chose not to rent a stroller – we would have been paying just to push it around! We had our umbrella stroller and she spent very little time in it. It was just one more thing to remember everywhere we went because we would park it and go to shows/rides and then have to remember to go get it afterwards. It wasn’t super helpful. I guess it was better than nothing, but the stroller thing is a pain.