Family vacation to Disneyland 2016

I don't remember when exactly the vacation jar began, but I remember why. Doug and I had just gotten married and just became parents. We were trying to learn how to merge our lives together while leading our children. Between our mutual decision to not carry cash anymore, and one of our many failed attempts to teach our children the value of money, we had loose change all over the house and lots of mysterious penny bank burglaries.

I spent way too much time analyzing the folds of dollar bills. So we made a rule, any money that was "found" went into the vacation jar. Any money that we received as a gift or had left over from a time when we needed cash (like yard sale day) went into the jar. The jar started out as a peanut butter pretzel jar and then was upgraded to a Halloween cheese puff jar about a year later. 

Here is a picture of Thomas making his first contribution. 

We knew we wanted to go to Disneyland for our first family vacation, we also wanted to visit grandma and grandpa. 

We cashed in the jar... about 3 years after we started it. At the time I was pregnant so we decided to wait until after the baby arrived. We knew we didn't want to go in the Summer (our attention span for lines is super short) so we waited. In 2015 we decided that was definitely the year we were going to go.....but the calling to add one more baby to the bunch won our attention for the year. In May of 2015 we found out we were expecting a baby. See that story here. 

I remember when we told the kids we were having a baby...their first question was "Can we still go to Disneyland?"

Fast forward a while and here she is 8 months old, all geared up to meet Ariel. 

Doug did all of the pre-vacation planning. And I must say he did a great job. Much better than I would've had the patience to do. He planned our budget, made reservations, scheduled our days. He made us matching shirts for all 4 Disney days. He even schedule time to meet up with old friends and show all of us where he grew up. (We really enjoyed that). I did all of the packing.. it took like 3 days. 

Originally, we were going to head out on Friday but with Jules' extreme dislike for her carseat, we thought it better to head out on Thursday evening, in hopes that she would sleep some of the way. Of course, this added the additional expense of an extra night hotel stay. In the end, it was worth it. I've made that drive many many times straight thru by myself as a teen, but now, with nothing to prove, and 8 children in tow.. it was just way too long. We also encountered some pretty heavy fog on the way in. 

Kids trying to stay sane

We stayed in Flagstaff in a nice suite with a small kitchen. The kids were beat and ready for bed the second we arrived. They didn't even make it past the pull out couch, which they all found totally amazing. (There are two rooms to this suite)

The next morning we set off just after breakfast. We were eager to get to In-n-Out Burger. We like the one in Barstow, it is insanely busy at lunch time but that is what is so fascinating about it. I've never seen so many people clamoring for fast food. (Until I spent 4 days at Disney, that is) It's really cool to watch.  

The drive was long, but we listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on tape all the way up there. (The younger kids had never read it and the older girls have read it 4+ times). Our goal was to finish it by the time we arrived in Universal Studios Harry Potter land.... we were 2 chapters shy...when we arrived at our destination. Check out the CA traffic.

I know my CA friends might not find this fascinating, but I do. Check out how cool the ocean looks on the GPS.

We played in the sand for about an hour before the sun went down. Then walked along Main St. It was a lovely evening.

We capped it off with dinner with some of our good friends. Little Miss Peyton stole the show, and Oliver's heart.
 

On Saturday, we went to Universal Studios. That was great fun. I had a migraine for most of the day. So we moved pretty slow and things were not nearly as efficient as I planned them to be. :( I feel like there was so much more to see there. We went on the studio tours.. that was pretty awesome. Overall, we had a great time. I wouldn't mind heading back there on one of our future visits. Check out these cuties practicing their spells. 

 By the way....that cute little wand cost $50. But now that I'm home and I've had a chance to watch the movie (I guess I missed that part in the book) we did get to go into Ollivander's and check out the walls full of wands. So that was a pretty cool experience. Very similar to the movie. I wish I would've taken better pictures. 

After a day at the park, Doug and I took turns driving north to see his parents. It took about 3 hours. There were many highlights from this part of the trip. Understandably, his parents were a bit apprehensive about having us stay with them. At first they told us no, then they offered us their garage and when we arrived late on Saturday night, they had super cute little beds made up for each person. Complete with house shoes for everyone. 

One of the things the kids are always going to remember is the humming birds. There were about 20+ humming birds that love to visit Tom and Miyoko San all day long. We had a great time taking pictures of them. The kids also got to pick apples from the tree in their back yard to take home with us. 

When Jules was born, Doug kept saying she looked like a little Japanese Doll his parents have in their house, I finally got to see it... what do you think? Do you see the resemblance? 

I also found a few other dolls that resemble some people I know. Check it out

One more treasure we found at Grandma and Grandpa's house was Doug's and Uncle Walter's Letterman jackets along with Doug's Airforce Academy Jacket. Thomas only wanted Uncle Walter's Letterman Jacket, because it had more patches and he really really likes that Uncle Walter was in the Army.  (click the picture to see all of the kids)

A cute quote from Thomas. 

"Mom, do you think maybe one day Uncle Walter might want to give me a knife, like I don't know,  maybe for my 18th birthday or something, he might not need that knife in the closet and he might want to give it to me, do you think?"

Thomas really loves anything that might make him even a little bit more like Uncle Walter. 

One of the other highlights of our trip was the "hot dogs wrapped in pancakes and the sausage that was round and rectangle at the same time" it was such a great time. We had a wonderful visit with Tom and Miyoko San. 

On Sunday, we met up with some of Doug's friends he grew up with. and he drove us around his hometown.