We started it out with a bang by making a trip to Disneyland. We left on December 18th and came home on Christmas Eve. Here's the details on our trip:
Saturday morning I woke up at 6 am to get the car loaded up and ready to go, DH got home from work at 7:30. MIL stopped by to give us some goodies for our trip and we at 8:30 a.m. We stopped in Utah County to visit with a friend for a little bit, then were on the road towards Vegas by 10:00 a.m. We arrived in Las Vegas at 3:00 Vegas time. We freshened up in the hotel room (stayed at the Aladdin) and went down to do some window shopping in the stores there. We splurged (majorly) on dinner at the Aladdin buffet, it was so good! We were there for about an hour and a half LOL, had to get our $$$'s worth...and I sampled 5 different desserts thinking that would justify some of the money I spent LOL. We went back up to our room at about 7, bathed Maddie and started a movie for her. The bathroom had a nice big soaking tub so I treated myself to a nice hot bath while DH kept Maddie entertained. We were asleep by 8:30 or so.
We checked out of the hotel on Sunday morning and were back on the road by 8:30 a.m. Traffic was heavy, but we maintained the speed limit all the way to Orange County. I did not have a map, and the signs did not direct us the way I expected them to, so we ended up in LA and had to back track a bit. We got to our hotel at 1:00 p.m. They wouldn't let us check in until 3, so we went to Downtown Disney to browse and grab a bite to eat. Once we checked in we took a nice long nap. We ventured away from the Disney area and found a Little Caesar's for dinner...$5 pizza is easy on the vacation pocket book! We went to bed early again and were excited to get to Disneyland on Monday morning. Monday we got to Disneyland at 9:30 in the morning. It was a lot more crowded than we had expected and it took us that whole day to get into the groove of everything. We were able to see Sleeping Beauty on our way to the annual passport counter, Maddie gave her a hug but lamented afterwards that she forgot to give her a kiss LOL. Aaron and I waited at separate times to get our pictures taken for our annual passports, which took forever! We had lunch at the Jazz Kitchen at Downtown Disney. We hit several rides that afternoon and left the park around 8 to get some burgers at Jack in the Box.
Tuesday we went to California Adventure for a couple of hours and then we met up with my friend Laurie from the August '02 playgroup board. We had lunch together at the Rainforest Cafe with her kids. That was a lot of fun. We stopped at Build A Bear so that Maddie could have some fun making her own souvenir. That was a huge hit! DH's feet were bothering him really bad so we found out how to get to the closest Sears to look for some shoes. No luck (of course) and it was the middle of rush hour...so we decided to grab some food and go back to the hotel for some swimming. Wednesday and Thursday were Disney days all the way. We got to the park by 9:30 both days and were there for most of the day (minus naptime). We had gotten smart and picked up stuff for sandwiches at the grocery store, we figure this saved us around $50. We did have one meal at the park each day for convenience. Wednesday night we took turns going on the Tower of Terror (lots of fun!) and then saw the Electric Parade at CA. We then ran over to Disneyland to catch the fireworks and magic snow. It was so windy that the snow didn't fall like it's supposed to.
We had been looking all week at different items to buy for Christmas, and went shopping on Thursday afternoon while Maddie slept in her stroller. We picked up two Disney Princess dolls, a sweatshirt, a jewelry/music box and a bracelet and necklace for Maddie. We also found some piano music books for MIL and found a way to transport mint juleps home for BIL (his favorite Disneyland treat). Thursday night we watched the Christmas Parade at Disneyland, that was really fun. The whole trip was worth it to see It's a Small World and the Haunted Mansion all decked out for the holidays. We had a great time. We checked out of our hotel at 8:30 on Christmas Eve and headed home. We arrived in SLC just before 7:00 p.m., very grateful for clear weather all the way home.
A few things I observed while we were on our first "family vacation" with just the three of us.
1. It's extremely difficult to keep a 2 yo happy, calm, entertained and well-behaved when there are only two people to trade off.
2. It's more fun to make sure your child gets to do everything they want to do than to get in all the rides you like.
3. 2 yo's don't understand the height restrictions on rides like Splash Mountain - she wanted on that ride so bad and cried every time we passed it.
4. Aaron has a hard time passing up anything even remotely cute, this observation alone has alerted me to problems we will have in the future when our kids will know that dad's the softy.
5. Portable DVD players make long cartrips completely bearable and almost fun LOL.
7. Family vacations are a great way to build memories that will last a lifetime.
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Christmas Day was really nice. We had to wake Maddie up so that we could get everywhere we were supposed to go that day. She was excited to open all of her presents and was happy to find the puzzle she'd been expecting from Santa Claus. After we were dressed and ready we left for my mom and dad's. Grandma Fay was in town from Phoenix, it was nice to visit with her. We had a nice brunch, opened gifts and lounged around for a few hours. We headed over to Grandma Despain's at 2:00 for the family party and lunch. We left there at 5:30 for Pam's and opened gifts, oh so many gifts! We had munchies there and then went home. Pam had to follow us home in her car to deliver everything we had opened, and our house that had been pretty much spotless on Christmas Eve was a disaster! We had fun getting everything opened, hooked up and put away.
Aaron's enjoyed the extra time to spend with Maddie. He's only worked three days since Christmas, so they've had lots of time together. It's been really nice to just get up and get ready for work myself without having a lot of running around to do. I'll enjoy one more week of it before school starts on the 10th.
New Year's Eve started out with a party at Thanksgiving Pointe. Maddie won tickets to Radio Disney's Noon Year's Eve party, we took Pam and had a fun time going through the dinosaur museum. We returned to Salt Lake at 12:30 and I met up with Amy to go to lunch while Chelsey watched Maddie for me. Amy and I are planning our trip to San Francisco at the end of the month, we are excited for some time away. After lunch I took Maddie home for a nap. We returned to Mom and Dad's for New Year's Eve because Aaron had to work at the hospital. Maddie stayed up until midnight and we shared the top bunkbed - too small and too high for me!
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