So alas it has been over a decade(14 years to be exact) and now I have finally made my way back to California! And this time I got to share it with my hubby and little boy, nothing better!..I was 8 years old when I went and it was just my parents and my two brothers. My parents had always planned on taking us back but once we got into highschool and started being active in sports, we got taken to other places. But not only have my parents wanted to take us back there, Wil and I have been planning to go ever since we have been married, so this was a pretty exiting thing for us to go do! The only the sad thing is that we had our trip planned for literally MONTHS and now our trip is in the past only to be relived as a memory *sighs* but the awesome thing about it was we had a blast!
We were only there for 4 days but every day counted. Day 1 was mostly a recoop day and a go to the mall and pick up anything we forgot kind of day! But we went to the mall in Carlsbad which by the way is a freaking huge mall! or maybe im just comparing it to the one here in I.F and it was big compared to that! but I was able to hit up a MAC counter, and attempted to exchange a pair of sandals for the Lando man that I had ordered prior to the trip and of course they were way to small! its like his feet grew a couple sizes over night! but thats all good because they ended up being girl shoes! (thats a whole diffrent story though.) But other than that me and my sis inlaw went to a Toys R Us and ended up picking up our sons LEASHES! the dreaded word, but the most life saving product!..So in the planning of our trip I contemplated buying a leash for Landon but I decided not too because I thought it was inhumane and that my child was not a dog, and the fact that as hyper and out of control my brother was and that my parents lost him at the Idaho State fair and he dived into over 5 lakes all in is adolencense, they never even got him a leash!..but when it was explained to me, " Would u rather have your child on a leash or never see him again?" YUP a leash please! my son is way to precious to me to loose him over a decison I refused to make..plus, it wasnt like a leash that I put around his neck attachted to a collar, they were cute back pack leashes, and I found it to be rather adorable! and very handy!..we were able to put the boys' snacks and sippys, so it was a very wise decison!
We also wrapped up the night by going swimming in my sister and brother in laws pool that was by their condo, so refreshing to take a late night swim in the warm tropical air!
The next day we woke up bright and early and got ready for Sea World!..My mother and father in law and my brother inlaw got up super early to go get my other brother inlaw at the airport since he was flying in from hawaii! meanwhile the rest of us got ready to go, even though we were an hour past the time we were suppose to leave, no biggie we just hit up a starbucks on the way out, and we were Sea World bound in no time!
Sea world was so much fun! it was amazing to "Sea" all the diffrent type of animals! lol and I LOVED the shows! it was amazing! the animals are so smart! and the best part of it all was..thanks to my hunnee in the Gaurd we were able to get in for FREE!..it was a steal! and so worth it!..but at the end of the day this is how my child was!
As fun as everything was, this face ment it was time to go!
So after arriving back at my fams house we all mostly chilled and visited the rest of the night, we mainly took it easy because the next day we had planned a day at the beach!
It was such a nice day, and the warm air felt so good! It was so fun to be there together, although little Bug was asleep for like the first 45 minutes, but in the meanwhile Wil collected sea shells and rocks, and I played in the waves, while my brother inlaws went body boarding! So wanted to do that, but Wil was not for it at all.
Landon loved the sand between his toes, and if we would of let him he probaly would of tried to ride a wave, that boy was fearless!..but most of all he had so much fun playing at the beach with his cousins, Aedynn and Ryleigh!..I love those kids so much!
Another thing that was nice was to be able to get the brothers together, it seems for the last several years we are always missing one, but im thankful that Daniel, Philip, and Wil got to spend some time together, and im sure they were thankful for that as well!
So as you can see the beach was a blast! one of my favorite things about Califronia! But what we had in store for the next day was even bigger!..DISNEYLAND!!!!!
Disneyland was so much fun! it was like reliving a dream, I had gone there once before when I was 8 years old, and everything seems to look the way I remeber except things seemed so much bigger back then! We rode on some pretty fun rides, and Landon enjoyed them too! it brought me so much joy to see how happy the rides made him, the sad thing is he wont ever remember like how i did, but i took so many picutres that he wont even be able to question whether or not his parents took him DisneyLand (just in case that is his only trip) but highly doubt that because Wil and I had so much fun that if we have to eat ramen noodles to save up for another DL trip we will!..no jk we didnt even have to look at a package of ramen noodles to go on this trip, it was because Wil is such a hard worker that we were able to go, and the fact that my awesome brother and sister inlaw let us stay with them! But where Landon was so little we were also able to enjoy taking our 19 month old son and experiencing the hapiness that came along with that, and being able to buy his very own toddler size mickey ears! Those little things melted my heart!
Our very first ride together!
Our first ride toghether as a family! Alice in Wonderland Tea cups!
Landons favorite ride! Its a small world! I loved his reaction to this ride, he just was so amused by the dispays and the repetative "Its a Small world after all" lol although at some point throughout the ride we relised he was doing this...
So after the couple rides we did as a family Landon fell asleep, and my so sweet sis watched Landon while we went through Minnie's house and Mickey's, but we didnt relise how long it would take to go through Mickey's house and he ended up waking up, but the lines were so long that we weren't able to go back for Landon nor were Ashly and Philip able to get him to us, so Landon wasn't in our mickey picture, but he was able to get his done with uncle Philip!
Mickey Mouse
So we spent the majority of the day going on awesome rides, eating at a delicous sandwhich shop, buying souvineers and spending time together as a family! It was all really awesome!..we even were able to hop over to Califronia Adventures and check out the new Cars Land! I was super exited to see it, Wil and i road the Mater tow truck ride, we were going to take Landon but he didnt quite make the hight requirements =( but thats okay, once we got on the ride we relised that he proabably would of flew out of the ride!
Indiana Jones
Then we went back to Disneyland and road Indiana Jones!..We had a fast pass for the ride so we were able to just walk on the ride! Wil, Daniel, and I rode it together, we had so much fiun and we were screaming our head off the whole time! and then we hit up the Indiana Jones gift shop where we got Landon a little Indiana Jones Mickey! awww presh!
After we had all our fun riding rides, the end of the day finally came, and since we were in Disneyland because we hit up Indiana Jones we were in the wrong park to see the World of Color Show, so we just decided to dress the boys down in their matching Jake and the Neverland Pirates jammies that we bought them, and just decided to make our way back the front of park to grab some carmel apples and head back to Oceanside, but on our attempt to make way we stumbled upon another show!..We were thinking it was a new show because bro and sis inlaw have never seen it before! we got lucky!..and even though we were not in the best place to see the show we were still able to get lots of pictures, and enjoy it!
Jake Jammies!
Sorry the pictures are so dark! it was at night, and of course you are going to get some bozo who is going to stand where they are not suppose to be standing so u get to take the back of their head in your memory blah!..but it was so cool, none the less and we took a video that was much better then the pictures I took, mostly because i decided to hand the camera over to Wil and his height was able to surpass these peoples' heads!
So yes, Disneyland was a complete blast, and what made it even more amazing was the fact that we got to be there with Wil's family, they are amazing people from the inside out and I feel so blessed to be apart of their lives now! It is always nice to go on little adventures with the people you love!..It makes so sad to think that our vacation with them is already over, because we go so long withought seeing them but our time together always goes by so fast!..I guess time really does fly when u are having fun! I'm so looking forward to when we can all be together again!..I miss my niece and nephew so much, and I love how well they play and get along with Lando! I want to thank Philip and Ashly my brother and sister in law for giving us a taste of the California life and making it possible for us to have a vacation together!..And for helping us so much with Landon so we could experince DisneyLand to the fullest!
So we arrived back in Oceanside pretty late that night, and we woke up bright and early the next day to leave by 8am, it was sad leaving but we had so much fun!..Our vacation didnt end quite there, Iwould say our vacation ended the minute we pulled into our driveway but the fun never stopped!..So leaving Oceanside we were up against 12 hours ahead of us. Landon did so good that I didnt have a doubt in my mind whether he would be good or not. So we made plenty of stops along the way, but one of our stops was in Barstow, Ca. We stopped there for lunch and it was such a cool stop at that! They had turned an old train station into a tourist stop, they had a mcdonalds, panda express and a little mexican restraunt, along with souvineers, and all of this was inside a train, well I guess just the Mcdonalds was in the train but the rest was attatched to it, it was so neat!
Not a Fan of the Ronald!
So I would say the Train stop in Barstow was the coolest stop on the way home, but I would say our intersting stop was in Baker, Ca. Thats a stop that I will never forget!..Tune in to read about it......
So as mentioned we made plenty of stops, Barstow was our coolest, Baker was our most interesting/creepiest stop! So we are driving along until we relised we needed gas, the next stop up ahead was Baker, and the thing was we had stopped in Baker on the way up to Oceanside, and it seemed like a pretty nice civilized town, we even had dinner there and ya it didnt seem like a weird town at all. But when we pulled into the town Wil had this bright idea to use his "Cheap Gas App" on his phone, and the thing was it already failed us once before, but he decided to give it another go because gas in California is so much more expensive compared to here in Utah/Idaho. So as we are passing down the little street of Baker we pass all the little shops and the gas stations, but at that point we were under the control of the cheap gas app and it found that the cheapest gas was going to be at a AM/PM so we thought okay, sounds pretty ligit, we filled up at one of those in Oceanside, but then directions started leading us out of the city limits and it had us turn up a residental road, and it is complete desert and very dry and creepy, a very rundown area, the directions then lead us up a long stretch of road of NOTHING! we were literally heading up in like the "hills" and my father in law turns back to Wil and askes him " Are you sure there is gas out here?" Will replies according to the app there is! So we kept going, and then i made the comment "Watch the directions will lead us to some guys house out in the middle of nowhere and he will come out of his little broken down trailor with a gas can to fill up the van." And where the directions were taking us we were about to think that was the case. After being sent on a wild goose chase from the directions we end up in a small little trailor court/Man camp out in the middle of nowhere, except these little buildings were condemed, they were complety trashed with half the sides of the buildings gone, and u could see right through the living rooms, no windows, holes, and beat up junk out in the front yards, my father in law says this locations reminds him of THE HILLS HAVE EYES! YIKESS!!!..and thats exactly what it looks like, but then the directions lead us into a barb wired location, with a difficult way to get out!..We were in AREA 51!! AHHH!!, so it took as awhile to get out of this barb wired area but we did..thank goodness! So we decided to head back toward the town, and we went to the first gas station we could find, and once we did that we found out the whole town was shut down, every gas station, every stop, there was no place to get gas, with no explantion as to why everything was closed at 2 in the afternoon! it was the craziest thing ever!..We soon had to leave after spending a good half hour trying to find a local gas station!..the good news was we were able to leave the freakish little town! (Known for their Fresh Alien Jerky) LOL!.. but along the way there were so many cars pulled over (im assuming they ran out of gas) and I was deathly affraid that would be us! we later leanred that there was a flash flood that knocked out the power in areas of California!..but thank goodness we were able to make it to Prim, Nevada and get gas, although we had to pay almost 20.00 more for gas! crazy!!..Good news though we didnt get trapped in that little town!
And needless to stay any of our stops from there on out were nothing compared. I would say our next stop was pretty fun! It was in Mequite, NV we stopped at another Mcdonalds because this one had a play area for Landon to burn off some energy, and the interesting thing was that most of those playlands are practically extinct! and we all had no clue why. I remember when those were so popular and my brothers and I when we were little looked forward to going out of town to go play on those! So Landon was the only child on the play area and he did pretty good playing by himself, although i initally went with him!. I was suprised i could fit in it, I was deathly terrified that I would break it!
So Much fun!
And that concludes all of our exitment from our vacation.......
THE END.
