Our Southern California Trip: Day's 1 & 2

We are back from our trip to Southern California. It was a fun trip! :) We went to Disneyland and California Adventure, and visited with my sister and her family for a little bit and went to Legoland. :)

I tend to put a lot of detail into my "trip reports" but this is my journaling for the trip, so I'm trying to put a lot of what I can remember into it. :)

Day 1- Driving from our house to Kingman Arizona:

We left around 8:30am... pretty close to the 8am time we wanted to leave by. About an hour into our drive Ashley lets out a yell from the backseat... she had just discovered that she had forgotten her ds games at home. She had packed her ds into it's bag and the charging cord, but not the games... whoops!! She wanted us to turn around and go home and get it, but we wouldn't (2 hour detour... I don't think so! we already had a 13-14 hour drive without that) there were tears from Ashley and some empathy from dad, but a little bit of "that was your responsibility" thrown in too... and we continued on with the trip.

The kids did pretty well in the car. We drove through the day without too many incidents (not to say there wasn't any fighting or complaining... of course there was, but it was short and relatively mild outburts and then they would find something else to do) Around dinnertime we were stopping for gas and saw a Golden Corral so we went in and had dinner there... we had been snacking on chips and crackers and granola bars all day long, so some real food was pretty satisfying. After dinner we continued on to the hotel. By the time we got to the hotel Angela had a gusher and soaked through her pull-up and all over her carseat. At the hotel I got to take the carseat apart and wash the cover in the bathtub. The little room airconditioner in the hotel room makes a great drying spot... it was dry by the next morning.

Day 2- Driving from Kingman Arizona to Garden Grove, California:

This day was a short walk in the park compared to the previous day. We slept in that morning and took our time getting ready and over to breakfast. The kids loved that they had waffles at the breakfast buffet. Alex ate about three bowls of cereal, and who knows what else. Then we got into the car and took off for the drive. We only had about five hours left in the drive or so... (I'm not really sure, if I'm wrong I'm sure Rich will let me know. :)) The drive was pretty uneventful.

We got to the hotel and the room was ready so we could check in early, and then we just relaxed and let the kids watch tv and play. Our room was pretty nice. Rich found a great rate at the Hampton Inn and got us a jr. suite so it had one room that was like a typical hotel room with two queen beds, and then an attached room that had a living room area with a pull-out sofa and a kitchenette with two cooking burners and a dishwasher even! It had just been redecorated and it was a nice place to stay at.

We decided to go and try out the IHOP for dinner. We were dissapointed at the prices there... $7 for a kids pancake (no sides or anything... just a big pancake with a smilie face on it), and $13 for a hamburger... the hamburger was fine, but we didn't expect those prices at IHOP... Then we went back to the hotel.

Now earlier in the day when we got to the hotel it was 100 degree's outside. The kids wanted to go swimming then, but I felt it was way too hot and the girls would just fry in the sun at that time of day... so we told them we would go swimming after dinner, that it would probably cool down a bit and be more comfortable to swim then... I thought it might cool down to the lower 90's by then, but when we went out there it was in the lower 80's and cold!! The water was freezing! So Rich played with the big kids in the big pool, and after dipping in the pool myself, and holding a shivering Alyssa and Angela for a few minutes, we went to the hot tub and sat in there... the jets weren't on, so it wasn't too hot to just sit in and let the girls play in that instead of the pool... :)

After about an hour down in the pool area we went back up and everyone got baths or showers and we went to bed, well the little girls went to sleep. Alex and Ashley were still wound up and we discovered that we had a great view of the fireworks at Disneyland right from our balcony! So we sat out there and watched the fireworks show. It wasn't until after the show was over that I realized it would have made some great pictures... but here are some pictures of our view towards Disneyland from the hotel balcony.