Day 11 (Saturday, May 17th)

Homeward Bound.

Not much to report here. Our first flight left San Diego at 12:30 in the afternoon… between layovers and time changes we finally made off the airplane in Salt Lake a little after 7:00 at night. It was a long day.

First Flight:

A funny story… we had Bridget running around to any airline employee she could find – while we waited at the gate for our first flight to board- asking for wings. Apparently none of the airlines give away wings anymore. Weird. She didn’t give up though, as we boarded the plane she asked the first stewardess she saw, “Can I have some wings?” The funniest thing is that she probably didn’t have the faintest idea what she was asking for. The stewardess was funny, she just replied, “No, I don’t have any wings. But I have these cookies. Cookies are better than wings anyway” – and she handed Bridget a package of cookies from the stash of first class airline snacks. She forgot all about her quest for wings after that.

Second Flight:

We were all very tired, but Bridget was the only one that got any sort of a real nap.

When we pulled in the garage at home we were sure glad to be back. Its funny, we thought that it would be great to have such a long vacation – and it was, but when it came right down to it, we think it was about 2 days longer than ideal. As I’m sure you can tell from our declining pictures, toward the end we really started to get burned out.

Anyway, we had a great vacation! It was tons of fun to relive it through these pictures and posts – thanks for joining us!

P.S. We ended up stopping to see Marissa first thing when we got back to Logan (around 9:30p.m.) – of all things things Bridget had to be excited to come home for, the one she kept talking about was Marissa. Its funny how much a little kid can miss her friend.

Day 10 (Friday, May 16th)

Last Day at Disneyland.

Friday morning we woke up and headed up toward Disneyland, stopping on the way at the Anaheim Mission Office, to drop off a little note for Elder Hedin. We also hit a couple of Geocaches in the area, and dropped in to Krispie Kreme.

Then off to Disneyland. It was a miserably hot day… 97 degrees I believe. And the park was packed. Consequently we didn’t go on too many rides that day. We mostly just tried to find things we could do to stay cool. It probably didn’t help that we had fried ourselves the day before at Legoland, so the sun was even more intense and painful.

We also didn’t take very many pictures. But here are a couple. In the first one Bridget is wearing a hat Dave bought (to protect his already crispy head and face). And in the second picture you see Bridget and I waiting for the Main Street Electrical Parade to start. She made friends (go figure) with the girl sitting next to her – her new friend even let her play with that light up toy she’s holding.

P.S. The Electrical Parade was pretty neat, neither of us had seen it before… but the Pixar Play Parade was still way better!

Day Nine (Thursday, May 15th)

Legoland.

Having skipped Sea World the day before I think we would have chosen to go there instead of Legoland, if we hadn’t already purchased our tickets.

We learned (through online research) that you can purchase a “BrickMaster” subscription through Lego.com that includes 6 sets of Legos, a subscription to Lego Magazine, a bunch of coupons, AND a complimentary ticket into the Legoland theme park for $39.99. That, compared with a typical $59 entrance charge to the park, was a no brainer. So we ordered our Brick Master subscriptions before we left, and arrived at the park armed with our “complimentary” tickets.

There were lots of cool statues, buildings, animals and various other displays made of Lego’s that were quite impressive. But generally speaking, Dave and I liked them a lot better than Bridget did.

They had a section called devoted to scale models of various locations around the globe. In may cases they had entire cities done in Lego. This is the part where Bridget got the most bored. She couldn’t touch anything… we just walked around (and took pictures).

There were also various rides and things. Most of which were either pretty dumb looking or had height restrictions that wouldn’t allow Bridget to ride. We went on a few. But the highlight of Legoland was this water park. We probably spent 3 hours there. They had all kinds of knobs, buttons and levers that you could move – and that caused water to start or stop at various other locations (usually drenching some unsuspecting kid). It was a pretty neat water park – and Bridget had a blast!

All in all, Legoland was no Disneyland… but we decided it would be great for kids about 5 or 6 years and up. The ones that already have an established relationship with Legos and who could enjoy the structures built of Lego. And that were tall enough to ride on all the rides.

And if you go… bring swim wear… you won’t want to miss the water park portion!

Day Eight (Wednesday, May 14th)

Day Eight was supposed to be Sea World. But I woke up that morning not feeling so well. I spent a good part of the morning in the bathroom causing all manner of foul and disgusting smells. Sorry if that’s too much information, but at least you didn’t have to put up with it being the only bathroom… sorry Dave’s family.

Anyway, what time wasn’t spent in the bathroom was spend curled up on the couch. I really didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything.

And my crazy family decided they’d rather not go to Sea World without me. So they all stayed back.

Instead Dave and his dad went geocaching, and Beckie (Dave’s mom) and Jenna took Bridget down for a walk on the beach (walking distance from our room) – while I slept the day away curled on the couch.

Later that afternoon we said farewell to Dave’s family as they headed back to the airport. This is a picture of the all of us before they left. Dave’s parents gave Bridget that darling dress she is wearing.

By early evening I was starting to feel a little better, so we decided to try going out to the pool again.

Bridget was really cute trying to get up the courage to put her face in the water. She finally did it too.

Well, sick or not, it was kind of nice to have a little bit of a down day where we weren’t rushing around so much. It was pretty relaxing.

Day Seven (Tuesday, May 13th)

Fourth day at Disneyland. We bought a 5-day hopper pass, so we decided to spend some time at California Adventure this time.

Bridget met Mrs. Incredible! We actually got in line twice to see her. As soon as it was her turn Bridget asked “Where’s your dad? [Mr. Incredible]” – the character, who didn’t actually speak, told Bridget that he was at home exercising. She just used hand gestures. Bridget’s response, “Oh. He will come out when he’s all done?” – Mrs. Incredible just nodded. lol.

Then there was this ride. A Ferris Wheel… on steroids? The enclosed baskets swung back and forth on those blue-gray bars as the wheel turned. Jenna and I skipped out on that one. But Dave took Bridget – you can see them in there if you look close. He said she had fun.

Playing in the water section of the “Bug’s Life” exhibit. Simple fun… Bridget LOVED it. Good thing it was a warm day.

They had this new parade at California Adventure called the Pixar Play Parade. It was very cool! It had all kinds of Pixar characters, some costumed, others animatronics. Some of them had squirt guns they shot into the crowd… and there were bubbles everywhere. The parade was probably one of the highlight of the day.

Bridget and Jenna waiting for the parade to start.

The Slinky dog from Toy Story.

Mater. Both Mater and Lightening McQueen were actual cars that drove the parade route. Lightening even revved his engine a few times.

After the parade we headed back for to Disneyland to finish out the evening. This picture is a tradition in Dave’s family. They went to Disneyland quite a bit as kids, and have photos from various years where they are hitch hiking with the ghosts from the Haunted Mansion.

We finished out the evening with one last ride on the Matterhorn before the park closed. It was starting to get late, and Bridget fell asleep like this on Dave’s shoulders while we were in line. I tried to gently take her down and get out of line as we were approaching the front of the line, but she woke up and wanted to ride.

On the way out of the park we got some Kettle Corn… the smell had been taunting me since day one at Disneyland, so we finally gave in. We got a large bag and we all shared it on the tram and in the car on the way back to the hotel.

P.S. the kettle corn is cheaper at Disneyland ($7) that it is at Hogle Zoo ($8) – go figure, Disney has something ‘cheaper’ – lol! Too bad they’ll probably figure that out and raise the prices before the next time we are there. Ha!

Day Six (Monday, May 12th)

More Disneyland! This time Jenna joined us.
The last time we were at Disneyland (Summer 2005) we decided to try the restaurant that’s inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It’s called “The Blue Bayou.” They had the best Prime Rib we’d ever had. It was only $17… a steal compared to the $9 hamburgers throughout the rest of the park.

So we made reservations again this year. The food was still excellent – but the Prime Rib was $34 instead of $17. I guess they figured out that it was a good deal. Alas! We just ended up getting one Prime Rib to share, and a couple of Monte Cristo’s (They were good too).

Bridget decided her napkin was a hat.

It was a cold, cold day. Dave and Jenna decided to do Splash Mountain anyway. They were freezing the rest of the day (But Dave wouldn’t admit it).

We met Winnie the Pooh. Notice our stylish sweatshirts… we got them in the Men’s department at Wal-Mart on our way to Disneyland. Apparently they don’t sell Women’s sweatshirts in May. Go figure. But $7 Wally world sweatshirts was a whole lot better than the $40 Disneyland ones.

We called them our “Man sweaters”

I don’t even know what she was doing. We had stopped the stroller to talk to a random Disneyland survey lady and Bridget decided that bending over in the stroller would be a good idea. She’s crazy.

We stayed until the Park closed. 8:30, I believe. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed again. Just in case you were wondering.

Day 5 (Sunday, May 11th)

Grandma’s house.

On Sunday morning we woke up bright and early and left for Long Beach. The drive was a little more than an hour in length. We were going to meet my Grandma (my mom’s mom) at her ward… 9am church.

She teaches sunbeams, so we sent 2 1/2 year old Bridget to her class. I think she was a little confused that the structure of class was different, but over all she did okay. Grandma had lots of snacks – I’m sure that helped.

After church we went back to Grandma’s house. My Uncle Carl lives there with her. Neither of them had met Bridget before – I was pregnant with her last time we saw them. So it was pretty fun for her to get to know them. She warmed up really quickly.

Bridget and I with Grandma and Carl.

Our little family with Grandma.

Just an example of how Bridget warmed up to them. This is her with Uncle Carl.

One of my favorite early childhood toy memories were of these Tinker Toys. Grandma still had them – in their same old, original, packaging. I could help but play with them for a little while. Bridget even joined me for a few minutes.

After we got back to the hotel that night we hit the resort pool with Dave’s sister. It was a nice relaxing way to unwind from the past few days. Later that evening Dave’s parents arrived – we all had a barbecue before hitting the sack for the night.