Disneyland - FINALLY!

Last October, Jed and I went to one of those Wyndam Vacation sales pitch meetings. We only went for the free gift! Who needs to spend $18,000 on condos that are so comlicated to reserve that you just end up going somewhere else? Seriously. We got 2 nights hotel a block away from Disneyland and a $40 gift certificate to Red Lobster. Not bad for 2 hours of being hassled. Just say no. It's easy.

So, we booked our trip to Disney last fall, but we didn't know if it would really happen until about 2 weeks before we left. Dumb economy. Jed is super big on surprises, so he was determined to keep this a secret from the kids. I'm not so good at the surprise thing, so a week before we left I started having bursts of excited energy and would say to the kids, "I know something you don't know" or "There's a big surprise next week that I can't tell you about..." SUPER annoying stuff like that. The kids were going nuts and Jed told me I was selfish - which just made me laugh more. Needless to say, we kept Disney a secret until we were on our way. We made it to Provo and finally broke the news. The kids were really excited (they thought we were going to Cedar City for the weekend... ha!).

We booked a hotel in Las Vegas for $18. It was really nice and we didn't have to go through a stinky casino to find our rooms.

Disneyland is so awesome.


By the third day of Disneyland/California Adventures, we were pretty wiped out. The kids still wanted more, but Jed and I were done. I wanted sandy beaches and sunshine, so we headed to San Diego.

The kids were beat too...

My favorite day was Sea World. What a cool place! The kids and I stayed there for 10 hours and loved every second. It was Jed's dream to play golf at Torrey Pines. We went to all of the shows and decided to see Shamu twice. The second time, we were determined to get front seats in the "soak zone" to be as close to Shamu as we could be. A couple of minutes before the show started, I decided to buy a rain pancho. It's a good thing I did! When that whale sprayed us it was a wall of water that hit that pancho. We would've been drenched and fishy the rest of the day. That was the best $5 I've ever spent.

The last day we spent on Mission Beach in San Diego, playing on the beach. I didn't get close to the water - it was freezing! But the rest of the fam loved the ocean.
We were going to stay in Las Vegas on the way home, we got there at about 11pm and Jed was determined to just keep on driving. He is a machine when he gets his mind set on something. He drove all the way home without stopping. We got home at 5 am and me and the kids slept the whole way. Good job Jed.