Spring Break - San Clemente and San Diego

Despite all the rain predicted for the weekend, we woke up to a sunny morning and decided to take advantage of it and headed straight to the beach.

 I thought it was a little bit chilly, but that didn't stop the kids from having a blast and getting all wet and sandy.

 Of course, I didn't have their swimming suits, but that didn't stop us!

 We left at lunch time and then while it rained in the afternoon we went and saw Zootopia. It was a cute movie and the first time Joey has ever been to a movie theater. He was so good. It was a relaxing way to spend a rainy afternoon.

The next morning we had some sunshine so we headed down to San Diego and went to our very favorite beach. WE just love Coronado and try and get out there every time we go to California, even if it is just for a little while. They kids had so much fun though. We could have stayed all day.

 It's the perfect place to play and the tide was just right to create a calm little pool for the little ones to play in.

It also has the best sand!

Will was fascinated with the ghosts and gravestone in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and insisted that Dave bury him in the sand and make a gravestone for him.

 Joey tried it out for a second too.

 The kids spent a lot of time making mud pies, or mud donuts in Joey's case. He was so funny and so cute. An Asian family came by and spent about 15 minutes filming him and taking pictures of him while he played. I'm not sure why, but Joey gets that wherever we go. If there are foreign (and particularly Asian) tourists they always gravitate to him and want to take pictures and videos with him. It's weird.

 He is pretty cute though!

 After the beach we picked up some lunch at our favorite taco stand and went to eat and play at the park across from the Embarcadero.

 Then we made our final San Diego stop at Old Town where we went to the candy store. . .

and the Mormon Battalion museum.

I will always have a place in my heart for Old Town and the Mormon Battalion museum after visiting my parents so many times while they were there.

The hot tub at the hotel was broken so we asked them to heat up the pool and they did! So that afternoon, even though it was cold outside, the pool was super warm and we spent the rest of the evening swimming!

 We finally pulled ourselves out and went and ate dinner at Jordan and Emmy's

 It was a bittersweet night. We had so much fun, but it was sure sad to say good-bye! We got up bright and early the next morning and drove straight through the day.

The kids were all exhausted after all the fun, but we made it home in time to get to their cousin Brian's baptism that evening. And that is what I call a successful vacation!

Spring Break - California Adventure and Disneyland

Our spring break vacation began with a last minute change of plans. We were going to drive to St. George on Tuesday afternoon, then onto San Diego the next morning and spend the night and the next day there before driving up to San Clemente for the rest of the week. On Monday evening Dave came home from work and said, "Let's leave early tomorrow morning and drive all the way to Anaheim and spend two days at Disneyland before going to San Clemente. We quickly called and cancelled our other hotel reservations and called our favorite place across the street from Disney. We lucked out and they had one room that would fit our whole family available. We loaded up the car and left at 5:00 am on Tuesday.

After a long day of driving, we made it to our hotel at about 3:00 in the afternoon. The kids were champs and we only stopped for gas and potty breaks.

 We were pretty stoked to get out of the car and stretch in the hotel room.

 We made it in perfect time to walk over to Downtown Disney and explore the stores and get some dinner and ice cream.

 We finished with plenty of time to spare for the pool.

 It was a great way to end such a long day of driving and we were still able to get to bed early enough so that we were ready to go before the park opened the next morning.

We headed out bright and early to California Adventure. Dave and the kids raced to get in line on the Toy Story ride while I ran to cars land to get fast passes for the cars ride. I ran as fast as I could back to the Toy Story ride and made it just in time to hop on with the family.

Joey and Will were both so cute on this ride, while Caitlin and Jordan went with each other and had a fierce competition.

 While we were over there Caitie and Dave jumped on California Screamin' while the boys and I rode the carousel and played in the fountain.

 Jordan hates roller coasters, but he doesn't look exactly thrilled to be on the carousel either. Haha!

 We worked our way around the park hitting quite a few rides before it was our fast pass time for the cars ride. That early in the day, there were hardly any lines for anything. 

The three older kids all went on the Tower of Terror, even Jordan and they all went on it a second time with Dave!

While Dave took the three older kids to ride the cars ride, I took Joey to wait in line to see Lightening McQueen. I have NEVER wanted to wait in a line to meet a character, but this, this, was not just worth it, it was amazing! Joey was in heaven. He was completely speechless and just lovingly petted and hugged Lightening. It was the best 3 minutes of the trip. It made his whole year!

By the afternoon we had already done almost every single ride and after eating some delicious sundaes from Ghiredelli's we contemplated going back to the hotel.

 As we walked by Cars Land we decided, for Joey's benefit, to walk through and see everything one more time. Well, we got to see Mater close up and couldn't resist waiting in line one more time to see Lightening McQueen with the whole family.

 By this time Joey had acquired a small Lightening McQueen toy and insisted it be in the picture too.

He is so in love. Then we decided to go on some of the other rides we were just going to skip because Joey was tall enough and is so obsessed with Cars.

 We ended up staying until it was dark and it was well passed time for us to be in bed! It was such a fun day and Joey's excitement and love of Cars made it so much better.

The next morning we ran over to Disneyland before the park opened. It was a wetter and colder day and it was a lot more crowded, but it was still a super fun day.

 The day was made even better because Uncle Jordan and his family met us there and we got to spend the day with them.

 I love this picture on Hyperspace Mountain. Dave is cut off, but Emmy watched Parks and Joey while the rest of us went on it. Caitie was willing to ride all by herself and kept her arms up the whole way. Will hung on with a death grip and me watching him the whole time to make sure he was OK (he was, and he even liked it although he declared it "freaky) and Jordan white knuckled it through and maybe had a tear or two leak out and swore he would never go on it again. Sawyer and Uncle Jordan go to Disney more than us, so it was old news to them.

Meanwhile, Emmy braved Fantasyland by herself with these two boys while we did the roller coaster.

 Caitie rode Splash Mountain a couple of times and loved it.

 Everyone loves Pirates of the Caribbean.

 Joey loved everything that had a car he could sit in.

 We had a downpour in the afternoon, but everything dried out enough that we enjoyed ourselves for a full day.

We felt like we made it on every ride that we wanted to ride (the only big one we missed was the Matterhorn and that was because it broke down).

 It was a great day and we stayed way later than we had planned and then had to drive down to San Clemente and check into out hotel there to finish the rest of our vacation!