California Trip 2012 (Part III)

Day Five: Museum of Natural History (USC)

Since things were so chaotic at Disneyland we decided to have the next day be a little more low-key.  We decided to take the kids to the Museum of Natural History at the University of South California campus.  It was a very cool museum in a VERY scary area.  Like, wow!  The actual campus wasn't bad but you get off the campus and it is like gang-banger area.  I was glad we didn't linger around afterwards.  I was surprised that such a nice school was in such a bad area.  We parked the car and right by the parking lot was a park/play ground for kids.  Well I didn't see a single kid there and it was completely overrun with homeless people/transients.  Its unfortunate that a nice little park for kids had gotten ruined.  I know I wouldn't dare let my kids play at a park like that.  I think I even saw a guy pee behind the building where the restrooms were (ironic, I know).  And I'm sure some drug dealing was going on as well.  Sure made me miss Utah!

The kids enjoyed the museum.  It was HUGE!  It just kept on going and going.  There was a whole building just of dinosaur bones, which Isaac loved. We had lunch there in the cute little cafe.  They also had an exhibit going on with a little tent outside that had tons of spiders.  Yeah, pretty much my worst nightmare, haha.  I didn't really want to go in but I did just for a minute.  Most of the spiders were nocturnal so they were asleep anyway.  It just creeped me out knowing they were all over inside the tent *shudder*.

When we went to leave we stopped at a Chevron that was by the freeway to get gas but for some reason it wouldn't take our card so we had to drive a couple of blocks down to find another gas station.  Once again, very scary neighborhood!  I think that is the fastest Keith has ever pumped gas, haha!

The kids in front of an exhibit with some really cool dinosaur bones, it can of felt like we were in the movie "Night at the Museum"

Isaac looking at a spider in a glass case....this is about all I could handle, haha

Malea standing by a spider web in the bushes at the Spider exhibit.....she was braver than me!

Day Six: San Diego

The next day we packed up our stuff and headed down to spend a couple of days in San Diego.  Before that we stopped to visit my Aunt who lives in the Laguna Hills area.  Sadly I didn't know before this that she had taken a bad fall a few weeks before and broke her hip.  I called seeing if we could come visit her not even knowing that had happened.  Instead of going to her house we had to go to the Rehabilitation Center she was staying at while she got better.  I'm so glad we stopped and had a nice visit.  She is such a strong woman and has been through so much adversity in the last year (losing her husband to cancer just months before that) and had such a strong testimony of God's love for her.  She is such a great example to me.

On the drive down we stopped at one of the beaches to let the kids run around.  It was much cooler there and once again Isaac wanted nothing to do with the water.  Back in 2007, Keith and I took a trip to San Diego just the two of us after I graduated with my Bachelor's, and we had eaten at this cute little beach side restaurant called the Daily News Cafe.  We decided to eat there again with the kids, which was fun.  We also made a quick stop by the San Diego LDS temple (my favorite) and got some pictures there.  It was kind of surreal thinking we had been there 5 years before that just the two of us, and here we were again 5 years later with two kids.  Pretty cool! 

Nice face, Keith, haha!

We got in to San Diego and checked in to our hotel, which was in downtown San Diego.  We had done a Priceline name your own price thing and ended up with a good deal at this hotel called "The W".  Well little did we know that it was a very swanky hotel that a lot of celebrities stay at.  It only had valet parking so we waited until after 5pm and parked on the street for free.:)  We walked in pulling our Disney princess suitcases and BOY did we feel out of place!  The lobby was practically a club/bar.  I think there was even a fashion show going on next door.  We got a good laugh out of it!  The room was pretty small and didn't have a fridge, microwave, etc., so we went looking for food that night for dinner.  We came across this literal hole-in the-wall Mexican food place a couple of blocks away.  It was like a little shack and they didn't even take debit cards.  It was super tasty though and very authentic!

Day Seven: Sea World

We woke up that morning and headed out to Sea World, which the kids LOVED.  They had a deal going on in October where kids were free with a paying adult, so that was great.  The weather wasn't nearly as hot and there weren't tons of lines to see things.  It was also a lot more hands-on.  Plus it had animals, which my kids love.  Sea World was definitely a hit!  I find it frustrating that they always have the Shamu show at like noon when its the hottest part of the day.  I know they do that on purpose to get more money in concessions!  It was hard keeping Isaac in one place during the show but we survived and enjoyed it.  They also had a bunch of cute little Halloween themed exhibits so that was fun.

We watched some people swim with the dolphins, lucky ducks.....it costs a lot of mula to do though!

Feeding the manta rays

This was so cool, the whales came right up to the glass!

 Looking at the sea turtles

Watching the Shamu show, still as cool as ever!

 

Very cool dolphin show, and Malea got to meet the stars of the show!

Looking at the flamingos

 

Buzz was there too :)

 

This was the shark exhibit, very cool (you go underground and see them from below)

 

Don't worry, that's not a real turtle, haha

 

Keith and Malea feeding the sea lions, you should have heard how loud it was barking at Keith to feed him!  It was hilarious!

  

Poor buddy was tuckered out

 One of the most eventful parts of Sea World was when Isaac got LOST.  Um, yeah, talk about scary!  There is a big kid play area that is Sesame Street themed.  Thankfully whoever designed it was smart and made it so there was only one entrance to that huge area.  The kid area had rides, a splash pad, different activities to do and a huge play ground with ropes you can climb, etc.  There was a big slide you could go down but Isaac was too short to go on it so Keith brought him back down.  Well I was watching Malea and then Keith took Isaac over to this little kid area that was for ages 3 and under.  Once Malea was done I walked over to meet up with Keith.  He literally looked away for 2 seconds and Isaac was GONE.  There is nothing more sickening than not being able to find your child in a huge park like that!  We started looking around and thankfully they are equipped for this kind of thing and have a Lost Children office.  I walked up to the worker and said that I couldn't find my son.  I gave her a description and she read it over the walkie-talkie to all the other staff.  He was probably only lost for like 5-10 minutes but it felt like an ETERNITY!!!  A couple of minutes later we heard a girl over the radio say that she had a little boy by her without any shoes on that fit his description, and thank goodness it was him!  It was no surprise that they found him over at that huge slide that he wasn't allowed to go on earlier.  He had actually climbed up the slide from the bottom and came through at the top where the worker was sitting.  What a stinker!  I am just so grateful that he was found safe and sound. 

After Sea World we went back to the hotel and spent one last night in California.  We had SO much fun but were ready to go home.  You could tell the kids were starting to burn out and Malea even said she was home sick.  We did the whole drive in one day home, which was hard but we were just ready to get home. What an adventure we had!  I'm so glad we went and so happy for all the wonderful memories we made. :)

California Trip 2012 (Part II)

Day Four: Disneyland

The next day we got up and got ready to go to Disneyland!  This was the thing I was looking forward to the most.  I had high expectations of the kids loving it and having such a magical time.  Well I was wrong, at least at first (this was definitely a learning experience for me!).  We drove to a parking lot where we got on a shuttle that took us to the park, since it was free parking for the Halloween party.  We had so much stuff plus the double stroller so this was a little stressful but we made it.  We got there and of course had to wait in line forever to get in (and it was so blasted HOT).  It was the Halloween party so everyone was in costumes, which was fun.  I brought all these cute princess dresses for Malea to wear, but she REFUSED to wear any of them!  It was so weird because she loves dress-up and princesses, and we were at freakin' Disneyland for crying out loud!  We got inside and a parade was starting pretty soon so we found a spot on main street Disney to watch the parade.  Once again, it was SO hot and crowded, and my kids were not doing well with this combination.  They also had a hard time with having to wait around all the time.  Note to self: bring things for them to do next time during down time.  Another frustrating thing was that we lost Isaac's binky very early on, which made it very difficult at certain points (note to self: bring extra binky's). We ended up having to find a store really late that night on the way back to the hotel to buy one, and made it in to one 5 minutes before it closed....phew, that was close!  

It was decorated so cute for Halloween, which is one of my favorite holidays!

 

Waiting for the parade to start!

 The kids' faces in this picture crack me up, can you tell it was HOT?!!

 Isaac experiencing sensory overload during the parade!  He wouldn't even watch it!

 The costumes were amazing!

  We watched the parade, which was so cute and I thought the kids would love it but they were both so funny about it!  (And not funny in a good way!).  Malea just laid her head down on my lap and wouldn't even smile, and Isaac wouldn't even look at the parade!  He literally was laying there with his back turned!  I was like, what the heck is going on?!!  It was really hard not to get frustrated.  I realized that I had set expectations and when they weren't doing what I thought they would do, I was getting frustrated.  This was my fault, but it was hard not to feel disappointed.  After the parade we started walking around and decided to look for the Matterhorn.  We had gotten Malea all excited about riding the Matterhorn, watched you tube videos about it, etc.  Well guess what?  The Matterhorn was CLOSED.  Awesome!  This is when she started throwing a royal fit.  She started crying and it didn't stop for about 45 minutes....no joke.  I think it was that mixed with all the sensory overload, hot weather, crowds, waiting forever, etc. We also told her we wouldn't buy her a stuffed animal (that cost $20....yeah, no thanks) and that just made it worse.  Let's just say, this was not the highlight of my trip!  I was sitting there calculating how much money we were wasting just sitting there while she threw her huge fit. Its funny now to think back on it but at the time it was not funny at all.  Once she calmed down a little bit we walked down to Toon Town which has a bunch of fun things they could run around and look at.  Well about 5 minutes later they kicked us out and said they were closing that part of the park!  I was so frustrated.  

 Merida from "Brave"

 After that we got in line to see the Princesses.  Keith and I tag-teamed so one of us got in line and the other walked around with Isaac.  Again, another reason to remember to bring something for the kids to do while waiting.  I think we waited at least an hour, probably more than that.  I like how Disneyland does it now though, because they have 3 princesses there at one time and then they rotate them out every half hour or so.  They warned us that the princesses that were there when we got in line might not be the same ones when we got up to them.  I really wanted to have Malea get one of her princess costumes on but she still refused so I gave up.  After waiting forever she got to meet Rapunzel, Ariel, and Cinderella, and they signed her little autograph book.  Isaac was freaking out by this point so he wasn't too thrilled about getting a picture.  The princesses were so cute with Malea, they made her feel really special.  We told Rapunzel we were at the parade and she said "I saw you!" to Malea.  It was so cute :)

 She looks really grumpy because this was right after she got over her huge fit....she was acting so shy when she met the princesses but she ended up talking about it a lot afterwards so I know she enjoyed meeting them.

 She was being so shy! 

 

After the princesses we did a little trick or treating.  They had a bunch of different stations that you could go through to get candy.  The lines were long but they went pretty fast, and they gave out a TON of candy....like huge handfuls!  By this point I had dressed up Isaac in his Woody pj's that were his costume, and every time we walked through the workers would say "Hi Woody" to him.  It was so cute!  This is another reason why I wished Malea would have dressed up, but oh well.  You never know what kind of moods kids are going to be in!

 Overall, we really didn't ride that many rides.  That's another thing I learned, which is if possible bring extra adults (i.e., grandparents) along for the trip.  Keith and Malea rode most of the rides because Isaac was too short so I mostly stayed with him.  This made it hard because he did a lot of sitting around in the stroller.  I let him eat candy and treats though so that helped, haha.  I was really impressed with how Malea did when it came to rides.  She went on some pretty fast ones with Keith, including the tea cups (which I would never ride because I am cursed with horrible motion sickness).  She is a trooper and didn't get sick or anything!  It was cute because Keith loves going on rides so he has a little partner to go with him now (since I don't like going on rides).  We did go on the Dumbo flying ride all together, because that was one Isaac could do.  That was really fun.  We also stopped at the Mad Hatter and got some mouse ears because I have always wanted them.  Surprisingly Malea didn't want any but me and Isaac got them (Isaac got Buzz Lightyear ones, he was really in to Toy Story at this time).  The kids also rode on a carousel, which was fun.  Once we started being able to go on rides, things started to turn around a little bit.  The last half of the Disneyland experience was a lot more fun than the first half.

I don't remember what time the parade started but once it was about a half hour to 45 minutes before it started we decided to go get a seat.  I'm glad we did because we ended up getting a really good spot, although it was soooo crowded.  Keith stayed with our spot while I went to get us some food.  Everywhere was either super expensive or a long wait so I just got in line at a corn dog stand because it was one of the more decently priced places.  I think I still stood in line for 20-25 minutes but it was better than some of the other places (another thing I learned: don't wait to go get food until right before the parade because that's what EVERYONE else does).  I got our corn dogs just in time to make it back to our spot to watch the Halloween parade.  The Halloween parade was so cool because all the main characters had Halloween costumes on.  The kids liked this parade so much more because by this time it was a lot cooler outside and they had gotten used to the craziness of everything.  After the parade we decided to just stay where we were for another 30-45 minutes to watch the fireworks, since by the time we went to ride any rides it would be time to come back.  I'm glad we did because the fireworks were A-MAZ-ING!!!!  Like the coolest fireworks I have ever seen in my life.  They had it cued to music and had all the villains from the Disney movies on it.  It was so cool!  Totally a highlight of the trip.  After the fireworks it was starting to get late so we stopped at a souvenir shop so that I could get a couple of little things and then we left.  We were told that you could go to any of the stores and say that it was your first time at Disneyland and they would give you a special pin, so we got one for each of the kids.

 It was fun seeing all the characters dressed up for Halloween!

So pooped after a long fun day!

I learned a lot on this trip to Disneyland, mostly about what not to do again.  Next time we go, I want to spend more than one day at Disneyland (which was the original plan but didn't work out since we were doing so many other things).  I also want to try and have my parents come with us next time because it would have been nice to have more adults to help out with the kids.  Another thing I want to do differently is bring things for the kids to do during down time, since there is so much waiting around!  Like an ipod with games/movies on it or something.  I think if we had been able to go more than one day we wouldn't have been in such a rush to see things and could have rested more.  I really wanted to do the park hopper and see California Adventure because they had just opened Cars Land (and Isaac is obsessed with Cars).  However he would have been too short to go on anything and it was new so naturally it would have been super crowded, so we decided that we will come back in a couple of years and see it. Even though it started out rough, I'm glad we went and after we got home Malea talked about it for weeks.  Hopefully she remembers the good parts about it and not the frustrating parts, haha!  And lastly, don't have high expectations, and remember that kids will be kids and they don't always cooperate!!