January / February 2012

I have been thorougly enjoying my time home being a mommy. It's been so fun!  My 3 top favorite reasons for loving my new life are:

1) Being able to spend more time with my kids. We play more, read more, do more crafts, and just enjoy spending time together more than ever before. When I was working, most days I would come home burned out and the last thing I wanted to do was get on the ground and play with my kids. Now I have that time and it is wonderful.

2) I have more flexibility with time.  I am able to do things I wasn't able to do before during school day time such as go up to Clearfield and eat lunch with my sister and all our kids, meet and old friend for lunch, go on special outings with my kids like The Aquarium, Nickelmania, and Chuck E. Cheese, run errands, etc.

3) I get my me time before my kids even wake up.  I joined a local gym and I am happy to say that I look forward to my mornings when for an hour I just have my me time and I can do water aerobics, or regular aerobics, or hit the treadmill, and then come home before my kids are even awake. I have more energy and my body could definitely use some exercise.

To celebrate my "early retirement" Scott and I wanted to do something special with our family. After much discussion and thought, we booked a trip to Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth.  You know, I had my reservations about the trip, before we went, and I wondered how much fun that could really be with a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a baby.  I thought there would definitely be A LOT of waiting around and taking turns with the baby waiting out rides.  But I thought, let's give it a try. Then we can decide if it's worth taking young kids there or not again afterward.  We priced out flying vs. driving, and decided that by the time you pay for a hotel in Vegas to and from Anaheim, it really wasn't much of a difference in price, so we opted to fly.  It was only a 1.5 hour flight once we got all checked in.  It was painless, except on the way back when we hit Lincoln's naptime and he didn't want to give up and sleep, but at least there were quite a few noisy kids to join him on that one. 

We flew out Monday, January 30th at 6 am.  Call me crazy, but that time actually worked out because by the time we actually got to Long Beach and rented a car, we were at Disneyland clear in the morning when it opened. The first day was not wasted with traveling.  We had purchased 5 day hopper tickets for our trip and rented the car in case we got bored and wanted to go to the beach one day or Seaworld.  We ended up having such a great time that we just stayed at Disneyland the entire time, all day for the 5 days. 

Our hotel was a perfect location, so close that we walked to and from Disneyland daily. We never even took our car out of it's parking spot for the whole week.  Our hotel was called Park Vue, and the room had a bunk bed, a queen bed, and a pack and play crib for the baby. It was a little tight, but the buffet breakfast and the close proximity definitely made it worth it; we'd do it again. 

On the first night Makayla and Sterling were playing on the top bunk bed, horsing around. We had pleaded with them to be careful especially coming down the steep ladder.  Sterling ended up falling down, head-first from the top of the ladder onto the ground. Only, his head caught a nail that was poking out of the trim from the bathroom door and sliced it wide open.  It wasn't bleeding too terribly, but Sterling started acting funny, like his eyes kept going from side to side, like he was going to have a seizure.  We started frantically trying to decided if we needed a hospital or doctor to check him out.  It was so scary! We were in a new town, with a million freeways going every which way, and we just felt torn whether to go or not, wondering if this would wreck our trip, being monitored at a hospital all week, instead of playing on the rides.  We decided in the meantime, Scott should give him a priesthood blessing for healing.  Scott did give him a blessing, and I can tell you that the blessing made a world of difference. Sterling immediately calmed down, his eyes stopped moving funny ways, and he was very coherent. He was able to carry on a conversation, tell us colors, and names of things.  We kept him up for 2 hours and he was completely acting normal by the time we let him fall asleep. I know that priesthood blessings work and I am so thankful that Scott was able to use that healing power for our little Sterling. I am really thankful for the gospel in my life.

The rest of the week we just enjoyed Disneyland from sun up to sun down.  It was really the perfect time of year to go.  We decided when we go back, it will never be on a weekend or in the summer because of how much fun we had. We pretty much hopped on every ride. The longest wait time we ever waited was 20 minutes.  We waited until the boys fell asleep in their strollers in the afternoons and then took Makayla on the big rides.  She is pretty tall for her age (44 inches), and most of the big rides, you have to be 42 inches, so we really lucked out with that.  She was able to go on Space Mountain 6 times and The Tower of Terrer (that drops you) 6 times as well.  We did a switch pass, which is the best invention Disneyland could have thought of. One parent waits with Makayla in the line and gets a coupon "switch pass" for the other parent. As soon as the ride is over, you meet up at the exit, switch the coupon to the other parent, and take Makayla though the special line with the coupon and immediatly get on the ride again while the other parent waits with the kids.  We were able to do this with all of the big rides, except Matterhorn which was being renovated, and the 2 she was too short for, The California roller coaster and Indiana Jones. 

One of my favorite highlights from the trip was the "World of Color" show on the California Adventure side.  At night they did a spectacular water show where they played music and had holograms clips of Disney movies broadcast through the water.  I also enjoyed the parades of course and the performances.

Scott bought a book for me called Babes in Disneyland  before we went, which was ever so helpful for navigating the park with toddlers and a baby.  It showed us the best places to get warm water for Lincoln's bottles and to change him.  It suggested the best rides for kids and times to go on them. It also gave us good places to eat that are kid friendly.  I was really glad to have my 'handbook' with me as we vacationed.  

On Friday, February 3rd, which was our last day in Disneyland, we noticed that the visitors there at least tripled.  The lines got crazy and it wasn't as fun as the other days.  We ended up going to the Tron Arcade (an arcade replica of the Tron movie) that evening which was something new to do. We flew home Saturday in the mid-afternoon.  I would for sure go back to Disneyland with little kids again.  I just think of Disneyland compared to Lagoon. At Lagoon, babies can't go on anything but the train and the skyride. At Disneyland, Lincoln basically went on everything besides the adult roller coaster rides.  One of us would hold Lincoln and take Makayla (who could easily get in and out of rides herself), and the other one would take Sterling who also needed extra help loading and unloading.  I have such fond memories of Disneyland. I would love to go back to the happiest place on earth again!