The Walkers: California Trip 2012 (Part I)

Back at the end of September we took a trip to California with the kids. It was a pretty chaotic time for us since we had just moved in to our new house and were in the middle of remodeling the kitchen but we had the trip planned for about a year, already had the time off work, and let's face it....we needed to get away! I'm going to break this up in to each day because we did so many different things that I want to keep track of it all. I will probably have to do more than one post.

Cute little Minnie Mouse!

Day One: Vegas

We woke up that morning and drove to Vegas where we spent the night. We were on the 3rd floor of our hotel and within 10 minutes of being there the front desk called and said that the people below us complained that we were being too loud. I was kind of annoyed because we have two young kids who had just been cooped up in the car for 6 hours so naturally they were going to be running around. I was also annoyed because it was only like 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I could understand if it was like after 10pm and people were trying to go to sleep, but oh well! We asked if we could be moved to a lower level room but they didn't have any so we just tried to keep them from running around. We went swimming at the hotel pool and then we got ready to go to the strip. We didn't do a whole lot in Vegas but we did go see M&M World and the Coca Cola factory. It was super crowded that night for some reason so we didn't stay on the strip long.

Day Two: California

We woke up that morning and headed out to finish the drive to California. It was nice breaking up the trip since our kids are young and that is such a long drive (although we did the drive home in one day). We decided to stop on Barstow to eat some lunch and let the kids get some wiggles out. Problem was, we couldn't find a dang restaurant that had a play place! We stopped at a McDonald's, got out, walked in and the play place was closed for some reason (renovating I think). At this point the kids started crying but I had seen a Carl's Jr. next door that also had a play place so I reassured them and we walked next door. Well guess what....that one was closed too! We were so frustrated. We got the kids back in the car and they were both crying so hard. We decided to just look for a park so we drove all the way through Barstow trying to find one. Another frustrating thing was that we didn't have cell phone/internet service to look up where any parks or restaurants were, so we were going blind. We finally found a park (which was probably not in the nicest neighborhood but we watched them close) and let the kids play for a little bit. While they were playing Malea all of a sudden says that she found a lizard. It was so tiny! It ended up being such a fun thing for the kids. After we let the kids play we found a Subway and then went to get back on the freeway at the end of town (which if we would have gone one more exit on the freeway we would have found the exit with TONS of restaurants, stores, etc). Its funny because we were so frustrated about not being able to find anything but it ended up being a really fun memory. We also realized later that we had driven on the old Route 66, and if we hadn't gotten off at the exit we did we never would have driven it.

We got to our hotel which was a Best Western Meridian Inn & Suites in Orange, CA. We had requested a bottom level because we didn't want to have a repeat of what happened in Vegas (although we ended up having loud people above us, but oh well). We got settled and rested after the long drive. Even though it was the end of September it was SO HOT in California! Like in the upper 90's the whole time! I was glad though because I felt like our summer was cut short with Malea breaking her leg so this felt like we got a little bit of an extra summer. That evening we swam in the hotel pool and even though it said it was a heated pool the water was so cold!

Isaac was not thrilled about swimming!

Day Three: Newport Beach

We were planning on going to Disneyland that day but the weather forecast said it was supposed to be REALLY hot so we decided to go to the beach instead. I'm so glad we did because the weather was absolutely PERFECT. It was seriously like heaven! The city was so hot but at the beach it was in the 80's with a slight breeze, which was just right. We decided to go to Newport beach because it was the closest to where we were staying. The ocean water was a little cold but not unbearable and we got used to it fast. Malea loved swimming in the ocean but for some reason Isaac would not even get close to the water! It was so funny. He did let us take him out in to the water as long as we were holding him and he didn't get wet....such a funny boy! We made sand castles, found sea shells, and all the other typical beach activities.