Spring Break Day #5 - California Adventure

Tuesday we went to California Adventure.  Nate went and got us Fast Passes for the Racers while the rest of us went on Luigi's.  This is Allie's most favorite ride and we knew we wanted to be able to take her a couple times.  She was so cute when she saw the ride.  She was so excited to pick out her car.  The three boys went together.  It was so fun to see them have so much fun with each other.

The first time we went Allie went with me and Megan went with Grandma.  After that Megan went with Amy and Lydia, Allie went with Margie and I got to go with Josh.  We had so much fun.  I, too, really enjoy that ride.  It is super fun for everyone!
Allie was able to go one more time with Margie later that day while some of us went on Racers she went on Luigi's.  She was one lucky girl!

After Luigi's we went on Mater.  That ride is also lots of fun and Allie enjoys it too.  Then we walked over and got on the Ariel ride.  While we waited in line we saw Tyler's teacher from last year, Mrs. Peterson.  He gave her a big hug and started crying.  She was such a great teacher and it was super fun running into her.
After going under the sea we decided to get Fast Passes for the Grizzle Rapids ride.  It was pretty hot and we wanted to cool down.

We let the kids play in the little play land thing while we waited for our Fast Passes to be good.  The first half of our group went on the ride while Amy, Cora, Matt, Allie, and I stayed off.  We found us a nice shady spot to sit and have a snack while we waited for them to be done.  After they were done we got to have our turn.  Tyler and Lydia came on the ride with us again and loved it.  Some of us had poncho's so we didn't get too wet.

After we all took our turn we decided to have lunch.  We went back to Car's Land because it was getting close to use our Fast Passes.  After a yummy lunch it was time to ride the Racers.  We each took turns.  While the others we taking their turn we tried to see if we could get into the show Frozen.  But since we weren't all together with our party we could go in and save spots for them.  So we didn't get to see it.  I was a little bummed.  I really wanted to see Allie's reaction to the show since she loves the movie so much.  But it's ok.

We took the kids on a ride in Bugs land before meeting back up with the rest of our group.  We decided to go on Monsters Inc.  I have always enjoyed that ride.  Then we got some very yummy caramel popcorn before getting  Fast Passes for Soarin.'

Allie had fallen asleep by this time and we couldn't go on Soarin' for a while so Amy and I found a place to sit down while Margie and Nate took the older kids on some rides.  It is always a nice break to sit down, eat caramel popcorn, and people watch.
After Allie woke up we went on Ariel one more time as a group before going over to Soarin'.  I knew we had to go in shifts again so Amy and I and the little ones stayed and went on Ariel again before walking over to Soarin'.  We didn't have to wait too long before they were done and we were able to go on the ride.
We were all pretty tired after that so decided to go back to the hotel.  We picked up dinner at a Del Taco that was down the street and it turned out being their very last night in operation.  They were bought out by a hotel.  So that was an adventure since they were out of many things.  But we made it all work and we all had plenty to eat.
Then it was back to the hotel for baths, jammies, and beds.  Awe sweet sweet beds!

Megan and Allie being super cute on the rocks in the play area.

Margie, Cora, Allie, Josh and I in the tram going back to the car.  Allie and Cora were so cute holding hands and being such a cute cousin friends.

Spring Break Day #4 - Disneyland

Tyler, Josh, Megan, and Allie

Tyler, Josh, Matt, Megan, Lydia, Allie, and Cora

Margie with 7 of her grand kids.

Every good trip to Disneyland need family pictures inside the front gate of Disneyland.  The kids all looked so cute in their Mickey/Minnie shirts from Grandma.  What a cute bunch of kids!

Disneyland was super busy.  We knew it would be with so many schools around the country having their Spring Break the same week as us.  We didn't let the crowds bother us and had lots of fun.  We got fast passes for the big rides and waited in line for the smaller ones.  My kids went on most of the rides that they could go on.  Josh still really loves Indiana Jones and did much better with Pirates this time, he even asked to go on it first thing and put his hands in the air on the drops.  It is so fun seeing your kids grow and figure out that the ride are not as scary as they thought.

Megan with Sleeping Beauty.

Megan sleeping with Sleeping Beauty.

The kids all did really good this day.  Allie got fussy and then fell asleep as I pushed her in the stroller.  I then sat down with her while she slept while everyone else went on dumbo.  While they were in line for Dumbo Sleeping Beauty came out and Megan got to see her.  Margie said she was super sweet with Megan and made a big deal about it being her birthday (Megan was wearing her Disney birthday pin).  I wished I would have seen it, but I am glad that Margie took pictures for me.

Tyler getting buckled on Dumbo!

Josh is all ready for Dumbo to start!

Megan was so excited to ride Dumbo with Grandma.

After they went on Dumbo Allie started waking up so we all went on Small World.  Allie and Megan especially love that ride and loved looking at all the dolls.  I enjoy that ride too.  After that we watched the show the Magic Map.  It was super cute and the kids enjoyed it.  Allie really liked seeing Mickey in it.

After the show we tried to see Minnie but she wasn't there.  We went through her house hoping she'd be at the end but she wasn't.  We then didn't want to wait to see Mickey (it said like 45 minute wait).  So we let the kids go through Goofy's house and play in the little play area.  They all liked using up some of their energy "goofing" around.

We did the Autotopia ride and I got to go with Megan.  Tyler was now tall enough to drive so he took Josh with him.  Margie took Allie.  That ride is always fun.  We then decided to get fast passes for Buzz Lightyear and then eat dinner while we waited for our time to start.

Tyler at Minnie's house.

After eating we shot us some "Z's" and defeated Zerg.  We're just that good.  We were all pretty tired after that and we were ready to go back to the hotel.  We finally made it back to the hotel and all zonked out from a very busy and fun day at Disneyland.

Megan and Allie playing in Minnie's house.

Megan taking a nap at Minnie's.

Allie thought the bed was too hard at Minnie's.

Allie playing at the playground in Toon Town.

Lydian and Megan inside the pumpkin in Toon Town.

Allie and Tyler were good at posing for me to take pictures before we got into the Pirates ride.  A personal favorite of mine and many others.

We love the Jungle Cruise.  Everyone was so into the ride no one looked at me for a picture.  That's ok we had a great time seeing "the back side of water."

Me, Tyler, and Josh on Thunder Mountain with Amy and Matt in the back.  We all got to sit together and loved the ride.

We got all 7 kids in or on Dumbo.  Good times.

Me, Amy, Matt, Tyler, and Matt on Small World.

Me, (Amy), Allie, and Josh on the boat at Small World.  It was pretty sunny right then.

Megan and I in our car at Autotopia.

Spring Break Day #3 - Megan's Birthday

 Megan officially turned 5 on Sunday.  We had breakfast at the hotel and then got ready for church.  We met up with Nate, Amy, and the kids at a ward that was in Nate's mission.

After sacrament we went back to the hotel and changed our clothes before heading back out for lunch.  We decided a McDonald's with a play place would be the best choice.  The kids had so much fun playing with each other that we let them play for a long time.
We then headed to Chino to go to a reenactment of the tabernacle of Moses.  It was like the temple that the people in the olden days would set up and down wherever they were.  It was pretty interesting to see all the similarities with modern day temples.

After we went on the tour we went to Red Robin for dinner.  We told them it was Megan's birthday and they brought her and the other kids a scoop of ice cream and they all sang to her really loud.  She really loved that.  The picture is of her while they were singing to her.  She loved the attention.
After dinner we went back to the hotel to get ready for bed.  We needed to get a good nights sleep to get us ready for Disneyland the next day.  We were all very excited!

Spring Break Day #2 - Driving & Downtown Disney

We all woke up nice and early on Saturday morning.  We got dressed and then ate breakfast at the hotel.  We weren't in a big hurry this day since we just needed to drive to Anaheim.  We had no problems on our drive.  We stopped and had lunch at Chili's.  The kids had fun doing selfies with my phone and eating lots of yummy chips and salsa...oh and the rest of our food.
After eating we got back in the car to finish our drive to Anaheim.  We couldn't get into our hotel until after 4:00 so we stopped at Downtown Disney to pick up our tickets for the week.  We wanted to get the tickets that day so we didn't have to wait in line for them Monday morning.
After we got the tickets we went into a couple stores and then let the kids play with the Lego's.  Josh really had an idea in his head of what he wanted to make and didn't want to leave until he had it finished.  It was fun to see all the kids using their imaginations to make silly creations.
After that we were ready to check into our hotel.  We decided to have ice cream for dinner and stopped at Joe's.  We all enjoyed our ice cream or Italian Ice.  It is Tony's favorite place so we all thought of him as we enjoyed our sweet treat.

Our hotel wasn't too far away so we finished our ice cream and then got all checked in.  We got all our luggage in the room and started to get things unpacked a little.  Then it was swimming time.  They had an indoor pool and spa so we were all very excited to get our swim on.  The pool felt wonderful.  We all swam around and had a great time.  We then enjoyed the hot tub.  Allie and I had enough swimming time so we decided to go back to the room to get bathed and ready for bed.  Margie joined us a while later with the rest of the kids.
After everyone was washed and in jammies we let them watch some shows before bed time.  It was another day of fun and relaxation.  We knew we'd need it before our busy week of theme park fun.

Spring Break Day #1 - Las Vegas

We started our vacation on Friday morning.  Margie was to come get all of us (except Tony) around 8:00 am.  Megan woke up that morning saying that her ear hurt on the inside (she also complained about it the night before).  So I knew I needed to take her into a doctor.
Once Margie got to our house we loaded up the car and got the kids all in and ready to go.  I called the pediatricians office on our way out and they were able to get us in at 8:40 at the West Jordan office (which was good because it was on the way out).  The doctor said yep the ear was infected and the other was red too.  So double ear infection.  We got a prescription and went to Walmart to get it filled.
After we got Megan's antibiotic (and gave her some) we were ready to go.  We drove down to St. George without any problems.  We stopped at Walmart and Margie ran in to pick up a safe for Nana.  Then we grabbed some lunch before going to Nana's house.  We ate our lunch at Nana's and let the kids play for a little while before getting back on the road.
The drive to Vegas wasn't bad.  We got checked into our hotel without any problems.  We got our stuff into the room and decided that we should get some dinner before going swimming.  We weren't sure where we wanted to go or where things were so we drove around for a little while before we found a Denny's.  We decided that was a good choice and all had a great dinner.
After we ate we went back to the hotel for some swimming.  The pool was really cold but the hot tub was just right.  Tyler and Josh would go back and forth from the pool to the hot tub but the rest of us stayed in the nice warm hot tub.  After we had enough water time we went back to our room for baths and showers.  Then it was hang out and get ready for bed time.  It was so nice relaxing in the hotel and not being rushed to do anything.  Just enjoying the break from our normal life.