Californivacation

Our family got to ROCK Disneyland this last week. We went with a whole herd of cousins which intensified the Disney rush for the kids. We flew into the Long beach airport which was cool because it's an open air airport and the California air was so warm and beautiful that we just sat out in it. Californians can not possibly appreciate the weather they have. We need to run them out and take over. Anyways, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Newport Beach/ Irvine. It was pretty nice and we got it for $40 a night. We got an extra room for all the kids and they loved it. It was like Lord of the Flies. The moms had to really try to suppress the urge to control and micromanage the kids. The first night the kids didn’t get to bed very early, but after 11 hours walking around at Disney, they were asleep in the car before we got home the second night. It was my first time even seeing Disneyland. We got to the park early so we could go on any ride right off without waiting. We all headed to the “best ride” which was Space Mountain. I walked into Tomorrow Land and looked around at all the “1950’s version of what the future would look like” buildings and thought wow, I figured it would be more “cartoony.” (I later got to the other lands that were more classic Disney) Then we ran up to Space Mountain and I hopped on and tried to fit and tried to move my legs and shift and adjust but they told me to get off and wait. I was thinking at this point this place is just crap retro futuristic buildings with rides that I don’t even fit on. I then decided I am just going to help the kids have fun and that will be worth the trip. Well fast forward two days and I was converted to a Roller coaster hound. I have never been on coasters before and just figured they were for city boy rich kids. California Screamin’ was my favorite because it was big enough that you had time to anticipate the next drop or loop.

Thursday we went to Legoland. The adults were not impressed, but the kids liked it. It is made for 4-10 year olds. Don’t bring an infant or toddler there. They don’t allow them on anything. None of the rides are scary at all and the young kids really enjoyed them. After Legoland we got some food and went to the beach and watched the sunset and played in the sand and waves. We then drove home and took over the motel hot tub and swam in a Mickey Mouse shaped pool.

The next day we went to Seal Beach which was appropriately named because we watched a sea lion surf the waves and catch huge fish. I was about 3 feet from him. The waves were big and we body surfed but each one of us got taken down by a wave and was injured some more than others. Even Betsy got hit by a wave just as we were leaving and the tide was coming in. At one point we all went down to the water and when we turn around there where hundreds of birds at our site eating our food. We turned Betsy loose to scare them away.


At 4:00 we headed to the airport and checked in to find that our plane was delayed 2 hours. With little kids this is the worst. But the Long Beach Airport is open and warm and the kids ran around and played. To kill the time we got a table at the restraunt (awesome food) out on the balcony and watched the sunset and the planes come in and take off.


All in all we enjoyed the company and the parks and the weather, we all need to find our own private California.