Family Vacation

Family vacation, we had one!  Normally it is just the kids and I traveling together, going on our adventures.  My sweet husband can rarely go with us.  For him to have two full weeks off of work was crazy!  Crazy in a good way.  We started off our vacation with an eleven hour drive to Saint George, UT.  It was a long drive and I get bored easily as the passenger.  At one point I told my husband he needed to let me drive as I couldn't handle the just sitting there doing nothing anymore.  Patience young one, patience!  The kids may have been a tad more patient during that part of the drive than I, probably.  We spent the following day in Saint George with my brother-in-law and his family.  Seriously love those guys a lot!  The kids had a great time hiking the red rocks, sleeping on the trampoline, and just running around with the cousins.  Archer is his young cousins favorite to follow around, cause he's so big.  Good thing he likes the little ones!

On Memorial Day we hit the road for California.  Arizona and Nevada were hot, flat, and dry.  Just as I suspected they would be.  It was supposed to be a quick six hour drive, nothing compared to the eleven the day before.  However we did not take into account the gamblers heading back to California from Las Vegas.  Oh my goodness!  A twenty minute drive turned into TWO HOURS of stop and, every now and then, go traffic.  It was madness.  Made it to my brother's a few hours later than expected and we had a nice birthday dinner with my mom.  Happy birthday mommy!

Turns out that my niece in St George had a tummy bug and unfortunately 3 of my 4 kids caught it.  I woke up the next morning to find that my sweet, amazing niece had cleaned up puke not once, but twice the night before!  Poor girl.  Thankfully the tummy bug only lasted a couple hours and the kids were better for the graduation that night.  My niece woke up to vomit and ended her day a high school graduate.  There's a story for her.

The next day was Disneyland!  My niece, nephew, dad, step-mom, brother, and sister all came with us.  It was so much fun!  Archer especially loved the fact that he got to go off with the teenagers for half the day.  The younger kids stayed with us and their grandparents and had fun exploring the kingdom.  We met the mouse and many others.  Rides were gone on.  Princess was freaked out by It's a Small World (thanks Doctor Who!).   Much laughter and many smiles were had.  As the night drew in it was time for fireworks!  We found a spot to sit and a gentleman that worked at Disneyland hustled over.  No!  You don't want to sit there, come with me I've got the perfect place for you.  And he did!  He set us up in a great spot with a view of the castle and the fireworks.  It truly was magical experiencing it all with my family.

The next day was meant to be day 2 of Disney.  Unfortunately Picasso woke up sick again.  This time it was pure exhaustion.  So Picasso and his dad took a four hour nap.  When he woke up he felt tons better.  So off to the beach we went.  My brother and niece joined us at the Santa Monica Pier.  The kids loved playing in the ocean, building in the sand, and stockpiling seaweed.  We wandered the pier and got our name made up with a drawing of sea related pictures.  The rides were all closed by then, but the lights and the music were beautiful.

Next morning, you guessed it, more vomiting.  Seriously NOT cool!  This time it was Princess early in the morning.  Thankfully after sleeping in she was good to go.  All the traveling and late nights sure was catching up with those kids.  We did another day of Disneyland and then the last day was California Adventure.  Picasso had been desperate to find "the duck".  Turns out Donald Duck spends his time in California Adventure!  We sat in a non-existent line for a good twenty minutes waiting for the duck.  It was completely worth it to see the joy in Picasso's eyes!  Roller coaster, ferris wheels, river rafting, bumper cars, more characters to meet.  Such an amazing time was had!  We could have used another day or two at the parks, but what we had was wonderful.

 

On our last day in California my sister-in-law made me arepas.  Venezuelan heaven in my mouth!  Seriously, I love those things.  I should try and make them myself sometime as it doesn't seem overly hard.  The food was the perfect send off to a wonderful week in California.  We piled back into the van and off we went.  We spent the night in Henderson, NV at the Springhill Suites (nice place, check them out if you need a hotel in the area).  We stopped in Vegas and checked out the M&M store.  The other things we wanted to see were no longer there or you now had to pay for and we didn't have the time.  So off we went.  We stayed our last night in Green River, UT at the River Terrace  (I will not stay again as they treated me awful when I checked in).  One last day of driving, with a stop at the John McConnell Math & Science Center (LOTS of fun).  Man was I glad to get home!  The three youngest were happy to be home in time for the last day of school.

Our vacation was truly fantastic.  All the time spent together, enjoying each others company was just what we needed.  I cannot wait for our next vacation.  Hopefully it won't be too long in coming!