Laguna Beach-Day 2 FGTD

We all slept good and were up and ready to go first thing in the morning. We ate breakfast at the hotel and had to walk through a corner of the casino to get to it. Gavin did not like it one bit, he said it freaked him out, but he loved breakfast. It was a buffet and I love to see what the kids pick out to eat.

We only had a few hours left to get to the hotel, but it was pretty interesting. We stopped in Barstow, CA to get gas and our cards were locked down for fraud protection (note to self to call the card company BEFORE leaving town) so we had to make a few phone calls so we could get gas. 

There was an In-n-Out there and Cody wanted a California In-n-Out t-shirt. The drive through was a mile long and Chloe had to pee AGAIN so I just went inside and it was packed!! There were two greyhounds of tourists inside. Luckily I found an employee and they let me just buy a shirt without having to wait in the food line. 

We were almost to Anahiem and on I-5 and Chloe had to pee AGAIN (she has the smallest bladder ever!!). We were at a point where we couldn't pull to the side, there were no exits so she just had to hang tight. We kept telling her to hold on, but it got to the point where she really couldn't. I finally took my empty water bottle and cut the top off and told her she would have to go in it. She refused. Finally she decided she couldn't wait anymore. I had Cody lay a bunch of paper towels down on the floor, we had the boys close and cover their eyes, and Chloe took her pants off. We had her squat between the 2nd row of captain's chairs in the van. Cody wrapped his hand and the bottle in paper towels and had Chloe go and go and go. He thought we were going to run out of space in the bottle, that girl really did have to go. We got her back in her seat and buckled and then Cody just looked at me still holding the bottle of pee in his hand.  I was driving and couldn't do anything except laugh and tell him not to spill it. Every turn/corner I made for the next 30ish minutes I would tell him, "grab the pee!" He wasn't as amused as I was. 

We also saw this road that was obviously named by someone who really loved the end of the alphabet!

The kids were mesmerized by the artwork at the hotel. Mason asked us if we were at Disneyland. We got settled in our room and then headed to Laguna Beach. We went over a mountain and drove down a hill and almost straight into the ocean, it was amazing. The kids had never seen the ocean before.

We walked until we got to the sand and then we all took our shoes off so we could feel the sand in our toes. I put our stuff down and then Gavin and I raced into the ocean. It was so fun and refreshing! Cody and Gavin spent the majority of the time there letting the waves crash them. It was so beautiful. The sun was setting as we were leaving which was even more beautiful.

Fry kids at Laguna Beach

Gavin stayed in the water until his teeth were chattering

Chloe would walk down the the water with me, but as soon as a wave would come in she would let go of my hand and run.

Mason would only go in the water if I would hold his hand.

He found a mussel shell

The bubbles I found at the dollar store were a huge hit

Chloe

Mason holding my hand as the waves would come in and get our feet wet

She finally warmed up to the water a little bit

  Cody (in the background) found some shells for the kids

Mason and Chloe played in the sand for hours

Gavin was chasing the seagulls, it was so fun to watch

My favorite people in the whole world!

 

Cody and I

Mommy and her cute kiddies

Gavin was feeding the seagulls chips so that they would get close to him

It's the off season and even though it was warm and a Saturday we had the beach mostly to ourselves

I taught Gavin how to properly pack the sand in the bucket to make a good sand castle

Holding our breath to see if it worked

The rest of these are my boys playing in the water. They did this for hours : )

Cody running from a wave!

My 3 boys

That's my man!

We played and played. The sun was setting when we finally decided to go.

We ate dinner at Joe's Crab Shack out on the patio, in February. A person could really get use to this! There was a heater right above the table that kept the night chill off, we loved it.

How can you not love this man?

Gavin fell asleep on my lap. Playing is hard work!

We bathed the kids when we got back to the hotel and there was so much sand at the bottom of the bathtub! What a fun day.

February 21, 2015

Fry's go to Disneyland-Day 1

I was up at 5:16 am and could not go back to sleep, I was too excited!! We got up and ready just like we do every other school day so the kids still didn't suspect anything. Finally, I went out and hid in the van to record their reactions. They got in the van and at first they didn't know what to think until I told them and even then it took a minute to soak it and IT.WAS.AWESOME!!! Gavin was so excited/happy/overwhelmed that he started crying and just hugged me.

The kiddos in their Mouse Ears!!

(seconds later I dropped my camera on the driveway breaking it completely!)

The kids with their envelopes from Grandma

We were happily on the road by 8am. We made a quick stop at Fred Meyer on the way out of town to replace my camera because there was no way I was going to Disneyland without one! We were almost to Devil's Creek Reservoir (2 hours into the trip) when I realized I didn't have my laptop, which was in the orange backpack. You know the one we put EVERYTHING important in. It was bright orange and right by the door so we wouldn't forget it. It had my laptop, our Disneyland, Seaworld, San Diego Zoo passes, our cash, hotel itinerary, everything we could not do without. So we did the only thing we could and turned around. It was a very quiet and long ride back home.

The back windshield of our van said "Disneyland or Bust". When we pulled back in the driveway our neighbor Jason came over and said, "Well this looks like bust!"  No kidding! 

So 3 1/2 hours later, $150 later (my camera), and 250 miles later we finally left our driveway for the second time only to get stuck at a railroad crossing. Ugh!! At least we got the bad luck out of the way right off the bat right?

A little passenger seat entertainment. Also don't let this picture fool you. Cody drove to Utah and I drove the rest of the 1000+ miles.

We took the kids to In-and-Out for their first time and they also say palm trees for the first time today.

Just looking at this makes me want to go back, yum!!

 Mason didn't waste any time diving right in

 Chloe decided to color her hands and lips instead of her coloring book. The markers went in the garbage and she was limited to crayons. 

Cody did find me a couple of pretty sweet bottle caps in Beaver, UT. An A&W one and a Brownie rootbeer one.

 

I ordered the kids blue raspberry slushies, huge mistake!! The kids looked like smurfs by the time we were done.

We stopped in St. George to have dinner with our niece Savannah and her husband. We went to the Honolulu Grill. 

 We made it to the hotel and got the kids in bed a little before 10 and even though I gave the kids huge sticky suckers, markers, and blue slushies they still survived contrary to Cody's beliefs!! LOL! We were going to go Cosmic bowling with my brother-in-law Chet, who was also staying at the Virgin River Motel on a golfing trip, but the kids were just too tired.

They were out almost as soon as their heads hit their pillows. Chloe's favorite saying of the day was "Where are we?" instead of "Are we there yet?" She got pretty sick of us telling her we were still in UT and was so excited when we finally told her Arizona, and then Nevada!

Cody found them this way

February 20, 2015