For reasons unknown to me, I was itching to go on a lot of vacations this year. Maybe it was because it was too difficult within the first year after having LaRae. 3 kids under 4 was no joke and I lost my mind. So I (maybe a bit prematurely) planned all kinds of trips for 2017. The first one started on January 7th- Disneyland and Carpinteria. Two of my top 5 favorite places. This was a wonderful, memory-filled trip, but boy were we tired.
The kids did pretty well on the flight. The boys were really good and happy with their tablets in hand. Sheehan and I just passed Rae Rae back and forth between us as she was the most restless but it went better than I expected. We got our rental car and went straight to the hotel which had a shuttle stop that took us right to the park. I thought we were going to be in the clear of crowds until we arrived and saw a sign saying Disneyland was closed due to being at capacity which is rumored to be around 80,000 people. I have never been when it was so packed. It was a Wednesday afternoon! I underestimated how many college kids would be at the park. Needless to say the week after New Years Eve was not a good time to go. We made the most of it though. We went to California Adventure and enjoyed all the little shows and the littler kiddie rides that were perfect for our Lincoln, Vance, and Rae anyway. The boy's favorite ride was the Mater spinning ride. You can see in the pictures just how packed it was. It was even rainy which usually means an empty park and that didn't even deter the crowds! We stayed as late as we could before heading back to the hotel. My Mom joined us and came in late Wednesday night. She slept in the next morning while we went back to the park to go to Disneyland.
We went as long as we could on Thursday until the kids and us were ready to crash for naps. So we went back to the hotel and crashed for a couple hours. When we woke up it was dark out. My Mom offered to watch Rae Rae who had come down with a cold while we took the boys back to the park. We thought we would stay as late as the boys could handle knowing the park closed at 11:00pm. We stayed away from the popular rides except we did waste a solid hour waiting to just get IN the line for Peter Pan and gave up. We still managed to get on a good amount of rides including Pirates of the Caribbean and the Nemo submarine ride. We watched lots of the shows again and were able to catch the parades both nights. Lincoln saw the autopia ride and was set on riding it so with 15 minutes to spare to closing we got on the ride. The boys were awesome. We are going to wait a few more years to go back again. Lincoln now tells us I love you more than Disneyland which is the highest of the "I love you" tiers.
We drove to Aunt Michelle's house Friday morning to pick up her motorhome she let us borrow to take to Carpinteria Beach for a couple days. It was a record-breaking rain week so the unusually warm weather we've had the past decade came to a screeching halt in time for our trip. Once again though, we made the most of it because we are on vacation dang it and we are going to smile and be happy!
The kids didn't mind the cold but they were busy playing in the sand with their toys and shovels. Then we started a fire to warm us up and wouldn't you know it a thunderstorm blew in and it hailed...On the beach...So we ran inside the motorhome out of the pelting hail and decided to watch a movie, eat and go to bed. The boys thought it was great. I lost my ability to keep up the positivity at this point but got it back the next day after a good night's sleep.
Regardless of the chillier weather we still got our Reyanldo's burritos and milkshakes from The Spot. the boys loved digging for sand crabs and exploring the tide pools with Sheehan.
On our final beach day, we finally had that warm sunshine I was just dying for. My Aunt and Uncle came and joined us for the afternoon and evening. Sheehan and Aaron drove the motorhome home while Michelle and I drove the kids home. Vance and Rae zonked out but not Lincoln of course.
You can see in the pictures that when the time came to fly home Sheehan and I were absolutely exhausted. So was it a fun trip, YES. Would I recommend it with 3 kids under 5, NO! But we survived and we smiled and the kids were so, so happy.
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