The S's Do the Happiest Place on Earth

A blog post from Kristin?  They must've gone on vacation or something.  Yep.  Disneyland last week. 

Here's this year's montage (it was a surprise for the kids so the beginning is our "big reveal" which is actually not all that exciting *and* my body is blocking most of Easton....oops).  More to come another day.

Disneyland: Day 7--Swimming and Departure Day

Autumn climbed into bed with us at some point in the night.  At first I didn't know who was hovering over me in the darkness.  Our kids never ever get in bed with us or come to our room in the night at home so I was confused.  But she went, "It's me--Autumn!" and climbed in and we went back to sleep for a long while again.  Like the previous morning.  With no parks to get to for "rope drop" we were able to sleep in which was nice. 

Autumn must've been feeling better because she snuck over to have "Boo" wake up Easton:




He was happy enough about it:


It's still early for pictures:


We headed over to Downtown Disney for breakfast again.  And Autumn was quite sad that it was our last day.  She did not want to leave Disneyland:


We had some fun just hanging out in Downtown Disney a bit:






More Lego store building:


And racing:


Then we headed over to our hotel pool for a bit.  It was so close to our room.  I'm at the pool taking a pic of J going into our room:



Easton's a strong swimmer, Dalton was so-so and there was a zero entry area for Autumn. 



Jason and I never even got in the pool we just sat in some lounge chairs and watched the kids and enjoyed the view of the palm trees above:




They had a small "spray ground" as well:



Eventually they got chilly:


And took some time in the hot tub for just a few and we moved on to check out and head over to lunch at the Grand Californian.  Now that's a nice place.  I'd rather travel to Disney more often than save up the money required to stay there, but still, it's nice to visit.  After lunch I bought some antenna toppers for my car in the gift shop.  The kids and I have been meaning to get one since our very first visit and we always forget.  They were 2 for $8 and I finally remembered.  I have a pink Minnie head with a crown and a sorcerer Mickey one for whenever we lose the Minnie one. :)  While I shopped, the kids watched old Disney cartoons with a bunch of other rascals in the lobby area:


Before long it was time to head to the airport, return the rental car and head home.  We accidentally brought Autumn's entire (bigger than 3 oz) bottle of Benadryl through security but no one from TSA caught it.  Oops!  We were able to dose her for the trip home.

Unfortunately, thanks to my phone changing time zones, it adjusted the flight time for me as well. 


We ended up getting to the airport an hour before we meant to.  It took us awhile to figure it out as well, like, "Why isn't our plane here?  Is this the wrong gate?"  Nope.  We were just early birds.  We grabbed some snacks from various vendors...I got some veggie wrap thing.  Jason got roasted edamame.  The kids got a Naked Juice.  We entertained ourselves in the airport for a good long while and then it was finally time to head home. 





The flight home was rather uneventful.  Autumn never puked.  When we landed in Denver and reinstalled one of the car seats and stopped at the grocery store on our way home.  We covered up the windows in the kids' rooms with heavy blankets and towels and we all slept in super late the next morning with our bodies used to being an hour ahead and tuckered out from our travels. 

And that is the end of the S's Do Disney--Again. ;)

Disneyland: Day 6--The Beach!

We slept in really late this morning. Past 9 a.m. which is late for the S's. Autumn woke up still not feeling her best at all. I dosed her with some more Benadryl and when we headed over to Downtown Disney to get breakfast we brought her a puke bucket in the car. And she needed it. :( Poor princess.

Jason blamed his driving a little bit.  We had a semi-sporty rental and he sure enjoyed a bit more extreme driving than he might in either of our SUVs. :)  He decided to stop being quite so rough once it was clear it was not helping Autumn so much.


We got to Downtown Disney, bringing her bowl along.  She didn't, of course, eat anything for breakfast.  Then we headed off to explore the rest of Downtown Disney for a bit but first, Jason wanted Autumn to have a little something special from feeling so crummy.  So she got to get her face painted.






Dalton was green with envy.


But hopefully it helped Autumn perk up a bit.


Er, maybe not.


We headed over to the Lego store again.
 

The boys made this together and talked for the next half hour, at least, about "making a plan" to recreate such a vehicle at home. 




Easton took this of us trying to recreate Belle and the Beast.


Eventually we headed on our way back to the hotel. 


Poor Goose fell asleep in the car.  Probably partly due to not feeling well and partly due to the Benadryl.




Back in the room, the boys wrote down their "constructions" for their Lego car:


When we initially made our plans for the week, we were planning on the beach earlier in the week and finishing up at Disney on this day but the weather had other plans and I wanted to be in the parks on the cooler days and on the beach on the hottest one.  So, that ended up being this particular Thursday.  Back at the hotel we got ready for a day at the beach and headed back down to Huntington Beach where we've enjoyed going before. 

Sweet Princess fell asleep AGAIN on the way down.


Even though it was the warmest day of the week, it still wasn't super hot.  Especially not on the water.  And it was breezy to boot.  Autumn had no interest in going towards the water.  She and I collected shells on the beach.




Dalton ran to the water's edge briefly but came back as well.  The Pacific is always so cold!


Easton and Jason, however, braved the surf a bit longer.


Then E got cold and needed to be buried in the sand.



(He's so red in the sun!)

Dalton headed to get some water to aid our sand castle building.


And then he also needed to be buried in the sand.


"Oh no!  My head fell off!  Here, let me get it!"


A discarded Starbucks lid aided in the construction of our sand castle but ended up just making it look rather phallic:


Beach babies.


Autumn was feeling well enough to play.



Look at her beautiful, graceful form! :)

Pose!


Pose again!


I headed down to the chilly water with E:




The boys needed some turns spinning as well:




And a family foot photo to commemorate the occasion and prove we were all on the beach, I guess:


We were getting rather hungry so we decided to head down to Ruby's on the Pier which we enjoyed eating at on our previous trip:


We were excited to go back once we saw that it works for our diet changes:


Not eating!


Ruby's kids menus are fun and the boys had these robots and other paper "dolls" to make:


Easton's blew away in to the ocean the second we walked outside after our late lunch.  :(

He was soooooo upset. 

We eventually made it through all the traffic and back to Anaheim.  Instead of being hungry for a real dinner we decided to walk to the Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream and milkshakes (since I wouldn't let E get one at Ruby's) instead.  Easton and Jason had to turn around on our walk for some digestive distress on E's part.  The little two and I made it all the way to Cold Stone and ordered before I realized I had no money.  J had it and he'd turned around.  Ack!  So then Dalton, Autumn and I left our stuff there saying we'd be right back.  We ran into Jason and Easton on our walk back, they were already on their way.  Whew! 




Dalton's eyes were looking amazingly green and lovely in the setting sun.  The camera really never did capture it quite right.


When we walked back to the hotel, we took the picture with the hotel sign you saw before.


And then Easton discovered there were snails stuck to the sign....


....and in the dirt.


As the ice cream was our "dinner" we just watched some Disney channel and went to sleep for our last night in CA.  If you care, our final day and departure are here.