Money Well Spent...But Burrrrrrr.....

Our Disneyland Surprise was so AMAZING! We woke the kids up in the wee hours (wee to me means before 7:00am) and there was a HUGE box wrapped up in their rooms. An overzealous Santa (not me- Spence gets a little excited) put the boxes in their rooms and we had an excited visit from Kendalyn around 4:00am - next time they stay under the tree:) We brought them down to the tree and they unwrapped their huge box to find a small letter from Santa telling them what was happening and some tickets to Disneyland - it was SO cute to see their faces. My mom came with us, so she had come down the night before and told them that Santa had left a letter under her tree telling her to come to Kaysville where she would find another present - it was all quite planned out..
It took us 12 hours to drive down and I'm REALLY thinking that even though those plane tickets are ridiculously priced - they might be worth it. It was long, but we made it and we all survived.
We went to the beach and FROZE, well maybe just my mom and I - the kids never seem to be cold. They had a blast playing in the sand and running around. We also took the kids to USC and Spence showed them where he had classes, we went to the bookstore to get "gear", and just to see campus - it was fun..


We were planning on heading to DL Monday morning, but we woke up to CRAZY rain. We headed to the Science Discovery Museum (not exactly sure of the name, but it is in Anaheim) and saw all of the Gingerbread Houses on display - so cute and did some fun stuff - like Kendalyn and Spence lying on a bed of nails -
- it is a great option for those of you who find yourself on a rainy day there.

We did DL on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and amazingly enough, we had NO rain! We had been checking the weather report for a week and it looked like rain the whole week, but we got SO lucky. It was such a blast and the kids were in heaven. And guess what?? I didn't even end up using the "harness"!! I took it to the park everyday, but Grady boy was so awesome at staying in his stroller and holding someone's hand when he got out. He didn't even try to run away once - it was amazing! I decided that my new favorite ride is Toy Story over in California Adventures - it is SO much fun - if you go, you HAVE to try it. Santa decided to surprise the kids with a small present everyday while we were there, and they got some fun stuff - Disney dollars, books to read in the car, a treat to take in the park, movies, and the best was lunch at Ariel's Grotto. My cousins had told me how fun it was for their girls, but I was iffy on the price, but in the end, we decided that if we didn't do it now, they would be way too old the next time, so we did it and it was so cute.

You get to go have this AMAZING food (really, it is SO good) and then the Princesses come in one by one and stop at each table to "chat" and take a picture. Adri was DYING and even Kendalyn who thinks she is too old for Princesses decided it was pretty cool!!!




Friday decided to be super soggy and we were lucky enough to be in Seaworld - if you could only hear the sarcasm as I write!! Normally I would be all over Seaworld - well maybe, but I'm sure it would've been fun had it not been POURING on us! We sat at our shows with our wet bums and our umbrellas on our heads, trying to eat popcorn and shivering - you get the picture! We laughed as we watched Adri constantly tripping over her poncho and laughed even harder when at the end of the day, I finally gave in and let Grady jump in every puddle he could find - he was SO enjoying himself
All in all, it was a great trip despite losing and then recovering our stroller (someone had taken it thinking it was their's and parked it somewhere else), leaving the Wipes container in the bathroom and then someone throwing it in the trash (thank heavens it was Spence and he had the joy of digging through the trash and then sanitizing the container), the crowds - we thought it was supposed to be the BEST time to go and I think so did everyone else, and the freezing weather - seriously, I wore a jacket, coat, hat and gloves everyday ALL day! I know it was in the 50's, but as warm as that sounds, we were IN it ALL day long and I'm just not used to that!
Anyway, we LOVED it and I can't wait to go back!!!