Universal Studios

No post yesterday, not too much happened and no pictures. But today was great and I have a few pictures to post.

The family kinda split up today to do different things. Aaron and Hayley's families went to Lego Land, my parents went to Disneyland, Beth went to the Hollywood area and did beach stuff and we went to Universal Studios. We talked to my parents and while ago and they offered to take Darek with them to Disneyland while we were at Universal Studios. It was hard to let him stay... but I am so glad we did. He would've had such a boring day with us. They have a few shows for little kids, but not many rides that they would really enjoy, or honestly can even go on.

We fought through traffic and got to Universal around 10:40. We got our tickets and went straight to the Back Lot tour. This has always been one of our favorite rides, so we were excited to show Alex how fun it was. He has been on it, but he was about 3 years old. We got to see the new King Kong 3D, which was really fun and also got to see a few TV shows filming... CSI and Parenthood (which is one of our favorite shows on TV right now). Alex really liked the back lot tour and thought it was cool to see a little about how making movies works.After the back lot tour we went over to the Simpson's ride. This was our longest line of the day (only 20 minutes) and it was well worth it! A very fun ride and one that Alex really enjoyed. We then went down to Jurassic Park. Alex has been dreading and kinda freaking out about going on this one. We waited only 5-7 minutes in line and got on the ride. I forgot ponchos, but figured we'd be fine. We got a little wet, but not bad at all. We got off the ride and Alex was jumping up and down with excitement. He wanted to go on it again so badly! The story of our lives... he always freaks out and then loves a ride. After that ride was a perfect time to stop and eat. We ate at our favorite restaurant there - the one next to Jurassic Park. We love going up on the balcony area outside over there. And Alex had to get up a few times to watch people come down the hill on the Jurassic Park ride. After lunch we decided to go on The Mummy ride next (only 5 minute wait). Alex did NOT like this one at all. I loved this ride, so I was kinda bummed that he didn't. But I was happy that he was willing to try it and not put up a fuss about it. We got off that one and went back over to ride Jurassic Park again. Can anyone guess what Alex's favorite ride of the day was??? We went back up and went to the Water World show. We were some of the last people in, so we didn't have much of a choice in seats. All that was left were seats in the 'soak zone'. I was not thrilled about this and told the guys I was going to see if I could find something else. I did find a seat and actually found an area that all 3 of us could fit. I motioned to Ryan to come sit, but he said he wanted to stay. So did Alex. The show was great as usual and the guys got totally soaked!! I was so glad I moved. We walked from there over to the Coca-cola water area. I ended up getting a little wet over there but we had so much fun all playing together. Then we went to the last show, Terminator 3-D. This one was okay, but not my favorite. After that was over, we did a little shopping and took some pictures. We stayed until the park closed and then fought traffic again on the way home. It was a great day and very relaxing. I am so happy we went and was thrilled to get back and hear all about Darek's day with Papa and Grandma. Tomorrow the whole family is going to Disneyland/California Adventure together. We will also have a character breakfast all together in the morning. I can't wait and hope we get tons of pictures! Until then, here are a few pictures from today!

A Few Comments

Just a few comments to end out today.

-Didn't get any pictures today. :( But did get some amazing video of World of Color.
-World of Color was AMAZING! Alex and Darek loved the "fire" part.
-Alex and Tyson are the BEST buddies ever! They go everywhere they can together and have fun being 7/8 year olds.
-Naps can make all the difference when you are on a Disneyland vacation.
-They have added some crazy cool Tron stuff at California Adventure. You would think that Alex had died and gone to heaven, he was so excited about it!
-Still can't get over this cold and it's driving me crazy!
-My boys are the 2 cutest kids in the world and I love seeing them so happy!
-The bear (Mickey) that Darek made at Build-A-Bear is his new favorite thing. Mickey comes on every ride with us, eats with us, rides in the stroller next to Darek... it is so sweet to watch him with his new friend. :)
-The weather is perfect here! Which makes walking, standing in lines, etc. all so much more pleasant.
-I am so grateful to be a kid at heart! It makes Disneyland so much more fun!

Day 2... so far

Right now we're taking a break in the hotel room since we got to the park pretty early today. This morning was so dead in the park. Ryan and Alex went straight over to Space Mountain while I took Darek back to Fantasy Land. We were able to get on Peter Pan's Flight in less than 20 minutes and then went to the carousel and got right on that. While on the carousel, I could see that Dumbo was a smaller line than usual, so we got right on over there and were on it in less than 10 minutes! I have never had lines so short for those rides! After we got off Dumbo, my parents, Beth, Chad and Gryn all came over and we went on Dumbo a second time (again, less than 10 minute line). Then I went over with Alex and rode Space Mountain and Darek went with Beth over to Peter Pan again. It was a great morning and we got to do so much! After that, we went over to California Adventure so that we could get tickets to see World of Color tonight. We met up with Hayley and her family and all went back to Toy Story Mania. All the kids loved being in line and it honestly made the line seem so much shorter! After Toy Story, we went over and met up with my Uncle Rob and his family on the Pier and had some lunch. The kids all fed their lunches to the ducks and played around. We then went over to California Screamin and took turns staying with kids and going on the ride. It was a lot of fun to be back on that ride! I love roller coasters! We were planning on heading back over to Disneyland, but Darek was not wanting to settle down to take a nap, so we decided to bring him back to the hotel to sleep and get some rest ourselves. We have about an hour until we head back to the parks. We'll get to see World of Color and enjoy some more time together. We didn't bring our camera in this morning, but we're planning on bringing it tonight. So hopefully I'll get to post a few pictures of our evening there. Tomorrow, my brother will get here with his family! They may or may not come to the parks tomorrow, but it will be so much fun to see his family! That's all for now...

We're Here

It has been a long couple of days. But we are finally here. And it's already getting late tonight, so I'm gonna make this quick. We left yesterday right after Alex got out of school. I was proud of Alex for getting through the day. He came out of school looking so happy! The first part of the trip went pretty well. Darek slept for the first part of the trip, which was wonderful. When he woke up, we put on Toy Story for the boys. They watched it and it ended right as we got to St. George. We went over to my sisters house to stretch, let the boys play and have a little to eat. We got back on the road at about 7pm. We went straight from there to Primm, NV. Honestly, this part of the trip went well too. It felt a little long, but the boys were really good. We got to our hotel, went to an automatic check-in and got the keys to our room. Ryan was out getting our luggage, so I took Alex and Darek through the casino to find our room. We got there and the key would not work on our door. I tried again and again. To make a long story short, I stood in a line for 20 minutes, got another room key for a different room and we went to the room. Darek went to sleep almost immediately. Alex soon followed. Ryan and I were somewhat awake, but tried to get some sleep. Darek was snoring like mad. Because of the snoring, caffeine from earlier in the car and doors slamming, Ryan and I only slept a total of 2 hours during the night. It was a nightmare! We got up at 5am to finish our journey. We drove straight through to Anaheim. Again, the boys were excellent on the trip. We got to Disneyland at 9am and Alex and Darek were as giddy as they could possibly be. We realized as soon as we got there that it was going to be a busy day. But we made the best of the morning. We went on Buzz (which Darek mostly liked), Pirates of the Caribbean (which he wasn't thrilled about) and Winnie the Pooh (which he really loved). We had some lunch and by then the park was full. So we took the boys into Downtown Disney to the Build-A-Bear store. This is something we've been planning on letting them do for quite a while. They both picked special Mickey bears. And they both decided on Buzz Lightyear outfits for their bears. Darek named his Mickey and Alex names his Nick Bearmondo (this was totally Alex's idea and he named it after his favorite soccer player on RSL, Nick Rimondo. I thought it was so cute and clever. We then came back to the hotel and have relaxed the whole evening. I am exhausted and ready for bed, so I'm gonna post these pictures of our journey and first day at Disneyland and get myself to bed. Hopefully more posts will follow for our adventures tomorrow!

In the car, waiting for Alex to get out of school

Alex running as fast as he can so we can start our vacation

Pictures of all of us this morning as we wake up at 5am and get ready to go.

You can tell I'm thrilled to be up after only getting two hours of sleep. ;)

The boys SO happy after getting to Disneyland!!!

4 more days

We are getting so excited around here! Just 4 more days until we leave for our vacation. I have been pretty sick for the past 4 or 5 days and it's driving me crazy. I could be getting so much done, but I don't have the energy for it. Despite being sick, we have started our packing process. We figure this week will be pretty busy. I have daycare kids all week (including the day we leave) and Ryan will be working through Thursday as well. Tonight my cousin is coming over to do some planning for her wedding. Tomorrow evening I will have daycare kids all day. Wednesday evening we will be going to Disney on Ice and then Thursday will be spent finishing up our packing. Our house looks like a disaster right now with suitcases out and packing in process. The nice thing is that we can pack all of our shorts right now since it's still freezing here. We looked at the weather there and it'll be between 65 and 75 degrees while we are there. PERFECT! Our goal is to have the van pretty much packed on Thursday night and then pick Alex up from school and start our journey. We'll stop in St George for dinner and to get out and stretch. We may or may not get to say hi to my sisters and parents who will be staying in St George for the night so they can all go see Bill Cosby. We will then continue on to Primm, NV and stay the night there. Early the next morning (5:30) we'll get up and drive the rest of the way to Disneyland. We won't be able to check in yet, so we are just heading straight to the park. We'll spend the morning there, have lunch and then take the boys to build-a-bear in downtown disney, where they'll get to make their own bear and pick out a disney outfit for the bear. After that, we will probably head back to the hotel. By then my sisters and parents should have arrived. We may spend the rest of the evening at the beach or just at the hotel, or go back to the park. Not sure yet. The rest of our vacation looks something like this:

Sunday - Disneyland/California Adventure
Monday - My brother arrives Disneyland/California Adventure
Tuesday - Split day... some will go to Legoland, Hollywood, Disneyland and we will go to Universal Studios
Wednesday - My whole family (all 21 of us) will get to do a character breakfast in the morning. We'll try to spend the majority of that day all together in the parks
Thursday - The whole family will be going to Newport beach to go on a whale watching cruise. I am so excited for this and I think this will be some great family time. After the cruise is over, we will spend the rest of the day on the beach.
Friday - Another day all together in Disneyland/California Adventure
Saturday - My brother flies home and possibly my sisters will drive back (not sure). We will stay that whole day, so the fun can last as long as possible! :)
Sunday - We travel home :( We like to take the ride home in one day, just to get the driving over and done with.

It is going to be a fun-filled week and will probably go by way too fast. I am praying that I will get rid of this sinus cold by then and am praying even harder that I don't give it to Ryan or Alex (Darek gave it to me)! We will be bringing our laptops with us so hopefully we'll be able to do some posts while we are there. Disneyland... here we come!