We thought we would beat the rush (at least Utah's) to Disneyland and go a week before Spring Break...but when we got there, we joined what seemed to be the ENTIRE southern California for their Spring Break. However, it was a very fun time. We pulled out Sunday morning for the long drive...I was quite nervous driving with a 2 year old and a sick 5 year old...and then of course McKay that asks almost every 15 minutes when we are going to be there! Thankfully, after calling the after hours nurse for a recommended cough medicine for Maci we headed out and met up with Brian and Amy and their little ones. I think we were quite surprised at how well the kids traveled. (Thank goodness for DVD players and several good movies!)
We stayed the first night in Las Vegas to break up the drive and stayed off the strip at the Golden Nugget. We had quite the experience while we waited over an hour for the guys to check in (it was extremely busy!!) Amy and I, the 6 kids, and all of our luggage waited in a quieter part of the hotel near the arcade. As we waited, we had a "Special" lady join us on our planter bench. It all started as I yelled for Avery to come away from the arcade...this special lady comes over and says, "oh I have a daughter named Adrienne!" I then repeat to Avery using her name again so she would see I didn't say Adrienne...well she proceeds to join us and is intrigued by McKay. She says a few different random things to McKay and asks him a few things then starts to cry. At this point, McKay starts to feel uncomfortable and scoots closer to me...she keeps rambling on about how thankful she is to meet us and then continues into her non crying stage and starts asking McKay questions again. She asked him where he was from, where he nicely told her, but that was not good enough. She started to become mad or irritated that his answers were not right. I whispered to him to tell her she was from Heaven. At this point I know this woman is not in the right state of mind, a little looney, maybe bi-polar...but we have no where to go with our 6 kids and ALL of our luggage. Poor McKay she would not leave him alone with all the questions. At one point she told me I was in her way and I needed to move so she could talk to him. I tried to protect my little ones by keeping their attention on other things, but this woman kept ranting on. She began to cry again and told Amy and I "Do not kill these little ones, these babies are the most important and so many people have abortions...do not kill!" Holy crap lady!! Then she tells me that I won the lottery and asks if I understand. "Yes, because of my kids!" I tell her. After a little while these two suited men come over to her and asks her if there was a problem upstairs (as I am thinking to myself, upstairs? what about right here, right now?) she suddenly starts to yell every profane word in the book and screams "security, security, these men are going to kill me." The men then proceed to handcuff the women and try to escort her out of the area, not far enough away from us though. I try to block the view of my kids and my nephews as she continues to scream. She was a bigger woman than the men and they struggle to restrain her...anyway to make this story short I struggled to protect my kids as Maci is crying and shaking uncontrollably. She was scared, McKay was scared, and honestly I was scared. I finally got in touch with Dave to send Brian down to us. It was such a relief to feel that security from my brother in law, even though I know nothing was going to happen, it just eased our fears and uneasy feelings that this woman brought into the area.
To get our minds off of the experience we had just had in the hotel, we took the kids to Circus Circus to see the clown act and get something to eat. For the short amount of time we were there I got sick and Dave lost his keys! Thank goodness I had my purse with me with my set of keys in it or it would have made for a very expensive stop! We went back to the hotel to sleep, but Avery kept crying "I don't want to sleep in that ladies bed, I want to go to my bed!" I guess that crazy lady affected her as well...Let's just say, the saying "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is really sounding good to me, let's just put that all behind us!!
Next stop, The HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH...
We drove into California the next morning, without checking into our hotel first, we headed straight to Disneyland. It was nice and sunny and HOT, yay! The lines weren't too bad and we got a couple of Fast passes. My kids loved it, and having been my nephews first time, they were in AWE! It was so fun to go with Amy and Brian and their kids. Maci and Dylan were able to ride together on most of the rides because Dylan was the right heighth, and Trevyn and Avery are the same age, but best of all we figured out how to work the stroller pass. Amy and I would get to ride just after they all got off plus we could take along another rider. We didn't have to wait in the forever long lines either, it was just as if we had the fast pass. We made good use of that for Soarin over California, Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain and a few others. For the most part, we went on a lot of rides that we were all able to do our most favorite Toy Story and Avery's favorite Pirate's of the Carribean.
Our second day there was supposed to be our early morning entrance day, but we found out that our shuttle from our hotel was over booked. We decided to drive in and park again. Dave dropped Maci, McKay and I off at the front of the park so we could walk in. As we were walking in we ran into our good friends Amy and Jeremy and their kids. It was Crazy...here we are hundreds of miles away and we run into them at Disneyland. Dave even talks to Jeremy once a week and it never came up that either family was going to be there. We had fun hanging out with them that day. We got to see a lot of the characters that morning, too bad it took Dave and Avery awhile to park and meet up with us because Avery would have loved it. We soon learned that Avery was not scared of them at all. In fact she loved to take other kids' turns by running up to them and giving them hugs...sorry kids! We had lunch at Redd Rockets Pizza Port and shared a whole pizza $31.99!! Yep, the most expensive pizza I have ever paid for, but the cheapest lunch we had in the park!! We stayed until it got dark and we were all starving. We stopped at the yummiest BBQ place ever, Lucille's BBQ! It was so dang good and cheap, especially since all the kids got to eat for free on Tuesdays! I wish there was one in Utah!
Our third day in the park was COLD! Well cold for California! At least we weren't back home in the snow. I am glad I packed warmer clothes for all of us because it really could have made it not so fun that day. Of course Splash Mountains line wasn't too long so we took advantage of that, and Thunder Mountain too. We saw Winnie the Pooh and friends and a few others. McKay didn't feel too well that day so at least we didn't have to rush to all the bigger rides. He did get dumped out of the stroller during one of Brian and Dave's stroller wars, and got a big goose egg. (I forgot to take a picture) We got to ride the Pirate's of the Carribean several times after eachother. We ate dinner at the mexican place in the park and didn't like the burritos at all...that is a warning!! And Avery, Amy and Kennedy and I all got to ride on Peter Pan while the others rode on Autotopia (Maci's favorite) over and over again.
Disneyland was nice, even though it was crowded we didn't feel rushed! We got to ride and see all that the kids wanted to. Even though each of our kids took a day they didn't feel well, it was still okay. The weather wasn't that great, but better than the SNOW back home! We got to see the light parade and the 3-D (It's a Bugs Life) show, Tinker Bell's Pixie Hollow and ride It's a Small World, all that we didn't get to do on our last trip. I was the only one that got motion sick from the Screamer (I was the only adult to go since I normally don't get sick) and I can say I will NOT be doing that again next trip, sorry McKay!
I think everyone was all worn out by the last day, although I could have had another day at Disneyland, but oh well. We left California just after breakfast time with plans to stay in either Vegas or St. George for the night, but as we got to Vegas we decided to keep going. Then in St. George we stopped to eat and then kept on driving. The kids did so well. I think our next trip to Disneyland we will plan on taking in either February or November...they claim that is the least busiest times of the year. Until then, thanks for taking part of our little trip to The Happiest Place on Earth! (sorry for the long post!)
