The Last Days of our Vacation

Friday we definitely needed to recover from our crazy pace! We took the kids to Hollyann's Mom's pool to swim. The water was so nice! She heated the pool for us and it was like bath water...my favorite! It was actually warmer in the pool than outside. :) I swam for a little bit and then Hollyann and I tried to take a little nap in the sun. Shane, Gracie and all the girls played and played in the water! They had a blast! I know they are super ready for summer to get here. 

Then that night, Erik and Hollyann took Shane and me to the Magic Castle. So so fun! First we had dinner in Westlake...right next door to wear Shane and I took our parents after we got engaged. Memories...*sigh.* :) Dinner was amazing...probably the best lobster bisque I have ever had! Then we headed into LA to go see some magic. The whole place is so cool. It's a maze of rooms with different magicians and different bars. Two of the shows were really fun. One of them was a guy from Austria. His magic wasn't super great but he was really funny. Plus...he called Shane up to the front and tried to get him to do a strip  tease with his suit jacket. He kept telling Shane how to do it right. We were all laughing hysterically and poor Shane was sweating like crazy! But really the best were these two guys called David and Leeman. Seriously...if you ever have a chance to see them you have to go. They were super funny, fast paced and their magic was insane. I couldn't figure out anything they did! They called on Shane too. :) Nothing embarrassing! It was a really great night!

The next morning was our last full day in California. We had saved our beach day for last and the girls were so excited. The only problem was it was freezing cold and overcast! The only day of our whole trip that wasn't sunny and beautiful. :( So we didn't get to go to the beach on this trip but we still had fun. We ended up going to the Camarillo Outlets. Hollyann had never been and she loved it! Since we weren't able to get Disney stuff at Disneyland, we went to the Disney store at the outlets instead. It was perfect! I got the girls a ton of cute shirts for pretty much $5 each, they each picked out a toy, I got a cute shirt for myself and we got them princess cups to drink out of. Score!! Since we were back in Camarillo, we met Steve and Melissa for lunch. After lunch we grabbed coffe and then took the girls to the park. It was such a cool park. We actually all had fun playing on all the toys, even though it was still freezing!

  

 I wanted to make sure we got in as much as possible while we were gone. Mitzi said she could meet us for dinner so we met her at Chi Chi's in Simi. When I was a little kid we would eat here all the time! I always got cheese ravioli, Colie always got spaghetti and meatballs and I think everyone else got pizza. And their rolls are so so good! It was great catching up with Mitzi and her daughter Megan has grown so much! She was almost as tall as Gracie! Afterwards we all got some Thrifty ice cream cones...I sure miss that ice cream!

 Natalie colored on her placemat while we waited for food. I thought it was adorable. :)

That night our plan had been to go to Mastro's for dinner but we couldn't get reservations. Erik decided to order food to go instead. He and Hollyann got dinner and Shane and I shared their warm butter cake for dessert. It was really nice. All the kids were in bed and we just hung out together in their kitchen eating amazing food. 

 This was the biggest steak I have ever seen!

And the best dessert I've ever had.

This whole trip was seriously perfect. I am so thankful that we were able to take our girls and have this amazing family time together. It was great having Gracie with us and we were able to do so much. See family and friends. There are always more people we could have seen and more things we could have done and we will probably try to get all that in next time. :) 

Vacation Day 8

Our last day at Disneyland! Being at Disneyland for 3 days was awesome. Such a huge treat for our family. But even getting so many days to experience everything...I feel like we just barely got our feet wet. Don't get me wrong, we did a massive amount of things in the time we had. It's just Disneyland! There still so much more that we missed! :) I'm already trying to plan another trip!!

So our last day was spent at Disneyland with Hollyann, Erik, Savannah and little baby Joshua. We went on Star Tours first and then got a fast pass to Space Mountain. Everyone thought we were crazy for letting Heidi go on that ride. But my kids are crazy! My girls absolutely loved Space Mountain! I had Natalie sitting next to me and I was worried about if she was scared or not because that ride is so dark I couldn't see her face! Then she started laughing because she was having so much fun. 

So in the very back its Savannah and Erik, then Natalie and Me, then Heidi and Shane and Gracie in front. All day long Heidi kept asking if we could ride it again. It was her favorite ride! Then we went on Autopia. Both girls thought it was the coolest thing ever to get to drive a car!

 I love how Heidi is really watching the road!

Then we headed over to the Matterhorn. We walked by the height chart and it looked like Heidi would be fine. Honestly she just missed it by probably less than a half inch! Her little heart was broken! She was so so sad! Then we took some group shots in front of the cool waterfall. 

We hit up Pirates of the Caribbean again and then Splash Mountain. Heidi wanted to sit in front this time. I have to say...we got the funniest picture. Gracie was holding on to Heidi because I just knew she was gonna fly out of the ride. She knew where the camera was this time and threw out a funny pose. I didn't have a kid to hold onto so I threw my hands up in the air but no one else did. Hollyann looks terrified and Natalie is laughing. You can't see Shane or Savannah because I'm totally blocking them. So silly. :)

We also made sure to get a good seat for the parade since we hadn't done that any of the other days. We sat and hung out for a while. Erik bought Gracie a caramel apple and she was in heaven! The girls were super excited when the floats started showing up. 

  You can't even tell but let me just give you a heads up...braces and caramel apples do not mix! 

 I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip...its just so sweet!

 These were the cutest floats. 

We also got to meet a bunch of characters today. 

 No line for the storm trooper...yay!

 Tiana on the other hand was a pretty long wait. But the girls were awesome and Tiana was really sweet to them. :)

Tinkerbell was by far the longest wait. She was about 45 minutes and I really thought for that long we would have met some of the other fairies too! It was really cute though...the whole area was called Pixie Hollow and there were little fairy houses all around.

 When you got close, everything got really big so you'd feel the size of a fairy. It was really cute! I didn't know it but the girls were not supposed to sit on the flowers. Good thing I got a cute picture first!! :) 

 Tinkerbell was so cute and she was really sweet with the girls. She asked them a bunch of questions and gave them all hugs. 

 After the parade we all went on Indiana Jones. We went in batches so someone could stay with Heidi and Joshua. Natalie was so excited to get to go on a big kid ride! She said it was her favorite. :) On the way out of the park it was super crazy. So many people!! I had been waiting to get the kids souvenirs till we were leaving the park but it was too crazy for me and we just left. Luckily, right by the exit we found Mickey Mouse! I have to say I think they should have 10 Mickey's walking around the park at all times. You shouldn't go to Disneyland and miss the chance of seeing Mickey Mouse! But thats just me. :) 

 I made sure I got a picture with him too. :)

Vacation 6-7

The next morning we got to Disneyland early because we stayed close in a hotel. Still not till 10 but earlier than the last day. :) We spent the whole day at California Disney and seriously closed the place down! We hit everything! As soon as we got there we got fast passes to the World of Color. Then we went to the Bugs Life area where the kids got to go on a ton of rides. They were mostly little kid rides and there was no wait so it was a great way to start the day. 

 Bumper Bugs

Then Shane, Steve and Gracie went on the Tower of Terror. Not anything I wanted to do, or the kids, or Melissa. :) We hung out and waited for them and the picture was totally worth it. 

They are on the bottom right...Gracie is holding on to Steve and Shane for dear life! 

We walked through old town Hollywood and met up with Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. We found a bunch of fun rides to do with the kids. And a bunch of Characters. I think the GI Joes were the best. 

Gracie and I went on California Screemin. This first real roller coaster I've been on since having kids. It was so fun! Then Shane and Steve went on. It really is a great ride. 

So then we went to Cars Land. 

That was awesome. The Mater ride was so fun and just flipped you around everywhere. We got ice cream at the Cone Motel and then we decided to go on the Radiator Springs Racers and the line was 70 min! Holy Cow! It was the only ride we had left to go on so we just toughed it out. Thankfully Steve and Melissa gave us their great ideas and we had a backpack full of lunchables, juice boxes and snacks. That helped us get through part of the line. Poor Heidi was so tired after two full days of Disney...she kept falling asleep.

 We let them play on our phones for a while, found a guy selling cotton candy and then finally got on ride. It was my absolute favorite ride! We all got into Lightening McQueen and started driving through the desert. Then the police car came out and told us to slow down, Mater went Tractor tipping and we even stopped at Luigi's for new tires. Then we pulled up to the starting line and the car behind us pulled up next to us. They shot off the gun and we took of in a car race! We went flying around the corners and over the hills. We beat the car next to us. It was so so fun!

By then it was getting dark and we went on a few more rides before going to the World of Color. Such a cool/crazy experience. It was basically a pavilion overlooking the pond where millions of fountains shot water up into the air. They showed scenes from different disney movies and played lots of songs. It  was really magical.  There was standing room only though and it felt kinda squished. The girls were tired and wanted to be held. We were all really tired when we left the park. Heidi fell asleep before we even got to our car! It was a perfect day. The girls were awesome, we hit all the rides and it was more fun than I could have imagined. Here are a few more pics from the day. 

 We made Gracie get Mouse ears too. She really didn't want to :)

 Me and my girls

 Going on the Jellyfish ride

 Wearing our mouse hats

At the end of the day...my absolute favorite picture! 

That night we stayed in Tustin...we basically transfered the girls from the car to their bed. They were out cold! The next morning Stephania drove down to have lunch with us. It was so nice to catch up with her! We were going to go to the beach but we ran out of time. We went to Chipotle instead. :) Then that afternoon we headed to Simi Valley to stay with Hollyann and Erik. Thankfully it was a much more relaxing day. :)