A 3 Surprise Trip

We had a super exciting end of the week/ weekend. Lance had a Thursday meeting in Anaheim on Thursday so we decided to join him and plan a super fun trip. We told Kai there would be 1 big surprise a day and boy were they good surprises.

Thursday:
While Lance was at his work stuff the kids and I did some exploring around the hotel, got some lunch, and then went swimming in the hotel pool. Our kids really are fish and would happily play in the pool all day everyday.



Around dinner time Lance got back and we went to go find the Thursday surprise. We told Kai it was waiting for him in a room down the hall. He went in the room and found Grandma and Grandpa Utah. What a surprise! That night we headed to a Woodranch in Anaheim Hills for a super yummy dinner. Woodranch was one of our favorite restaurants by Pepperdine so it was a great treat and just as good as we remembered. That night we told the kids about their surprise for the next day by giving them these pj's:



Friday:
Friday morning we got up early and rode the shuttle over to DISNEYLAND. We were all super excited. The kids had never been there before and it had been years since the rest of us had been there. We were there when the park opened and rode about 4 rides in the first 45 minutes which was awesome. I think going on so many rides so fast really helped Kai and Rori get even more excited about what we were doing. Lance had used a program suggested to us by our friends the Pearce's which basically gave us an itinerary to follow based on what rides we wanted to go on, average line times, etc. It was awesome and really seemed to work well. I'm sure it also helped to be there in February on a school day. I can't imagine going and waiting in forever long lines in the heat with a 2 and 5 year old. This was so much better!

Waiting to get in:






Kai and Rori did great with the rides. Kai rode on all the big rides like the Matterhorn Bobsled, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Before the trip I had tried to suggest that he might still be a little young for some of those, so both Lance and Kai were pretty proud to prove me wrong. Although he enjoyed those rides I think he really like Autopia, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and Buzz Light Year.

Rori held her own on rides too. She rode on all the Peter Pan type ones and even did great in the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean without any tears or need to be held. She did like to be seated next to her Mom with an arm safely wrapped around her though. After exiting a few of the more scary rides she happily exclaimed "I did it". I think her favorite activities may have been It's A Small World (loved all the dancing dolls), the Tiki House birds singing, the Dumbo Flying Elephants, and climbing the tree house. Meeting Minnie and Mickey Mouse was a big highlight too (she LOVES Mickey), although as you can tell from the pictures she preferred to keep a safe distance all the same.





































It was really fun to be there with Lance's parents and get to enjoy seeing things through the kids eyes with them. They were troopers to happily put up with our itinerary and the fact that we were there from about 8:30am to 8:30pm. We loved getting to spend some time with them in such a fun place. Thanks for making the trip to join us!



We had a great time at Disneyland and it really couldn't have gone any smoother. At the end of the day we really felt like we had done everything we wanted to without much waiting in line or frantic running from thing to thing. In fact I think our longest wait was probably just over 1/2 an hour on 2 rides. Kai pretty much summed it all up by saying "Disneyland is even better than I imagined".

Saturday:
Saturday's surprise was that my parents and Whitney came up and joined us to watch some more swimming and have some lunch. It was fun to have both sets of our parents together- especially since the occasion wasn't planned around me just having gone though having a baby. Mom, Dad, and Whit had been sick the weekend before and even taken a trip to the emergency room so we were glad to see them feeling much better in person.









We drove back to Vegas Saturday afternoon and got home in time for some dinner and beds. We were all beat but grateful that all our surprises had gone so well. It was a great trip that we had really been hoping to make happen before baby #3 makes its appearance in a few more months.