A little trip away

It was a gloomy gray morning, I woke up and looked outside.  “I need to get away to somewhere warm”, I thought to myself.  This thought was quickly followed by one somewhere along the lines of “ok, warm it is”.  I quickly planned a trip in my head to San Diego.  This would be great, we would go to Sea World, walk on the pier, hang out at the beach, and eat too much food.  We are going! 

I came downstairs for my early morning phone call to Angie and told her of my pending plans.  She was in.  It seems that we have had a little more rain clouds this winter than those in the past and it wasn’t hard to convince her.  Now, with a family that is so very close as is ours, I really can’t plan a trip to San Diego in good conscience without inviting the whole crew.  I called Emilee, Ben and my dad, I proposed the plan, and before we knew it, we had plans to go to Disneyland in addition to the events stated above. 

The plans became plane tickets, the plane tickets became plane rides, the plane rides became rental cars and we were there.  Everyone had a slightly different trip planned, Emilee drove, Ben flew to San Jose, my dad flew to LA and everyone had varying stay dates.  Angie and I arrived on Thursday.  We started out basking in the sun while we waited for the rental car husbands to return.  It wasn’t long before we packed up the bags and moved to the shade.  It was sort of like, “Bright light, bright light!” as we haven’t seen a lot of the sun here.  The rental cars finally arrived and when I saw Steve pull up, I was a little worried.  The rental car I picked said "Economy" and would hold 5 passengers and 2 bags.  I figured I would trade passengers for bags and we would be fine, but when I saw Steve’s teeny car I was confident I would be leaving Greg’s back at the airport.  Greg came out of no where behind Steve to help load in the bags and I asked if we would all fit.  Very confidently he told me we would be fine and smiled.  Ok, this should be fun.  We hauled our bags over to an UPGRADED car for the same price.  I was so proud of Greg, now his bag could come!!

It was off to the hotel and a quick stop for lunch at Souplantation.  I will never understand why they don’t have those here.  Mmmm. Mmmmm.  We even went twice while we were there and if Owen had his way, a third would have been in the plans as well. 

Lunch was good, the hotel turned out to be perfect.  Finding the hotel was an event in itself.  Angie and I wanted a place on the beach and almost got a rental house for way too much money.  We regained our senses and decided to go really cheap away from the beach.  We read the reviews and kept looking.  We ended up in a hotel on the beach for a reasonable price and even got a discount if you mentioned the Neeleman reunion when you booked it.  It had all the requirements we wanted, breakfast, beach, fridge, and clean. 

Thursday night after dinner we discovered Yogurtland and thank heavens we did.  It was one of those do it yourself frozen yogurt shops.  The mint yogurt with Oreos was a favorite of the kids and I and let’s say we went back there more than twice.  (And, the best part, they have one here.  A little ways away, but WHO CARES!)

Friday was a day at the beach in the sun, taking pictures and eating snacks. 

Saturday was DISNEYLAND.  We had all been disgruntled for weeks after finding out that they would be closing at 5:00 that evening for a “private event”, but that went away when we learned it was the world premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean 4.  Now it was cool.  We had our list of rides that closed early, hit those first, and made our way around.  Ivy was not a fan of Pirates the ride, she covered her ears in the dark and cried down the hill, but she LOVED Small World.  She stood on the bench and danced and pointed and smiled.  It was definitely the highlight of my trip for Ivy.  She would have stayed on the merry-go-round all night if we would have let her.  Owen loved the Buzz ride as much as last time although he told me he was more excited to see his cousins than go to Disneyland, that was the highlight of my trip for Owen. 

Sunday was SeaWorld.  It was a little chilly that day.  A tad breezy and cloudy.  Not the sun we left for, but it was fun just the same.  I love SeaWorld after Disneyland, it is nice to move at a slower pace and we were all happy to rest our weary feet while waiting for the shows to start.  Ben put us on a strict show schedule which worked perfectly!  We ended the day with a delicious Mexican dinner in Old Town.  The worst part of the day was the shopping episode for our souvenirs.  Ivy picked four things and would not put any of them back.  Owen wanted three things.  A day of Disneyland, a long day at SeaWorld = I really didn’t care and bought all of them!  It made them happy (of course now they all sit in a pile on the floor next to me, and I am not sure what happened to the promise from Owen that if I bought all of those things he would play with them everyday). 

Here is my documentation of SeaWorld in pictures – awesome.

We ended our trip with another day at the beach, a walk along the boardwalk, swimming in the freezing ocean, a small baby girl with a fever, another trip to Yogurtland, plane sickness by Owen, too many snacks on the plane, tired kids, happy kids, happy parents, cousins that didn’t want to say goodbye, pants that were too tight, a lot of stuffed animals we don’t need, a lot of chilly wind and a trip that will go down in the books as one of the best!