Family Vacation

Tyler told Emily that when he bought a mobile home park he would take her and the rest of the family to any place in the world that she wanted to go. At the time I should have been educating her on foreign countries since her knowledge of any outside world is limited. But I didn't. Well, in February Tyler did it, he bought a trailer park. (Yes, I know it sounds glorious, you can stop laughing now, although we can share stories about it that will definitely throw you into a fit of laughter.) Now it was time for Emily to pick the family vacation destination. Where else would a 4 year old (at the time) pick? DISNEYLAND of course. WAHOO, road trip!

Our 2 little princesses loved the giant princess castle.

They also loved the princess show with all the different princesses.

Don't eat the apples! Allie was a bit apprehensive at first about getting very close.

Emily and Allie absolutely loved riding on the Buzz Lightyear ride. But all their excitement didn't compare to Tyler's love of the ride. Put that laser gun in his hand and say good-bye Zurg!

 Buzz thought that Emily and Allie did a great job helping him defeat the evil Zurg.

The Josh Man was worn out from the battle and just couldn't stay awake.

We watched Kobe Bryant ride the tea cups and the Alice in Wonderland ride with his girls. We were probably the only ones not going crazy about his being there.

Joshua taking the ladies for a ride through Mickey's Toon Towne.

Check out those muscles!

Not sure why we think rides that make us want to puke are fun?

Emily and Allie both went on the Matterhorn twice. The first time down Emily said she didn't like it but then decided she wanted to do it again. She really liked it! Allie kept her hands up above her head the whole ride the second time. She said "that ride is really fun but I don't like that big mean monster in it."

 We love Mater and Lightning McQueen.

Josh was so excited to ride by himself!

Josh loved stealing Tyler's hat and putting it on his own head. He would scrunch his nose up and get a big ol' cheesy smile every time he did it.

Emily and Allie also loved riding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. They liked the fact that it had little waterfalls to go down.

Emily also went on Splash Mountain with Tyler. She wasn't the biggest fan and said she wasn't going to go on it again until she was 10. As the day went on she said "Splash Mountain was scary but I want to go on it again next time we come, maybe when I am 6."

After 3 days at Disneyland we drove down to San Diego and headed to Sea World.

We saw Shamu first and sat right up front in the splash zone.

The kids thought it was cool when Shamu would jump out of the water and do tricks.

It didn't take long for us to get soaked!

We then checked out the Cirque de la Mer show where Tyler was picked to entertain the crowd. And entertaining is what he did. I think the old lady next to me was about ready to take Tyler home with her, I was a little worried she was going to have a heart attack she was laughing so hard. People who were at the show watching stopped us throughout the day and told us how funny they thought Tyler was.

The kids loved seeing all the animals. Josh called everything a dog.

Emily and I went on the Shipwreck Rapids ride together. I got soaked, Emily grabbed the towel that belonged to the lady next to her and hid under it.

We ended the night by watching another Shamu show from the splash zone, again! This time we brought towels to hide under.

The kids making Shamu tails with their hands chanting "Shamu, Shamu".

We spent our last day in San Diego at the beach.

We started off by eating breakfast on the beach. YUM!

We spent our time splashing in the water, looking for seashells, building sand castles and relaxing.

This was a day that Josh thoroughly enjoyed. Whenever we let him walk around at Disneyland or Sea World he would go straight to the flowerbeds and play in the dirt. This little guy was going through major dirt withdrawals apparently so a day on the beach was just what this little guy needed.

Tyler went out and enjoyed some boogie boarding.

A few more days at the beach would have been nice but our time was up. We went and bought some beads at the bead store down the street and then started on our way home. We stayed in Vegas over night and then on Saturday we drove the rest of the way home.

I woke up that morning not feeling so well. As the day progressed I figured I had heat exhaustion. I was sick beyond belief the whole way home. Then in the no-mans-land between Vegas and Mesquite we had a blow out on one of our tires. It was 100+ degrees outside. The spare tire was under all of our stuff in the back of the car so Tyler had to empty all of it out. The jack was under the back seat and in order to get to that Tyler had to take out all 3 car seats. It was a mess and all of our stuff was piled up on the side of the road. I was too sick to help so Tyler had to do it all by himself. He changed the tire like a champ and then we headed to Mesquite to buy a new spare. What a mess. Tyler was busy getting the new tire and such, I was curled up in the waiting room too sick to care about anything and my kids are running around making a mess. I ended up throwing up in the bathroom at Big O Tires. Glorious! We got back on the road and finally made it home without any other major problems (besides traffic).

What a fun and adventurous week! LOVED IT!!