Spring Break (SB) came in with a bang and left the same way. We had a great SB this year spending time together as a family and making those ever precious memories!
This year Brett and I decided to surprise the kids. When we first started discussing what we should do for SB we found some great deals on Salt Lake City Passes that would get us into a ton of stuff and we'd stay in a hotel in Salt Lake and have a great time. The kids were actually really excited to be able to do this.
A few days later as Brett and I were putting the finishing touches on our vacation and just before we purchased the City Pass tickets, we played with the idea of going to Disneyland instead. We found a family through KSL.com who were going to DL a few days before us and we shared 6, 6-day hopper passes with them. They used the first three days and we used the last three days. It cut our costs in half! It worked out GREAT! So after figuring this out we decided it would be really fun, and that we would surprise the kids, so Disneyland it was.
Time came for SB and we headed down to Orem to spend a night with Grandparents. Our kids couldn't figure out why we wanted to drive to Orem if we just had to turn back around the next day to go to Salt Lake, but they didn't care too much since they weren't in school. It was all in the journey, right?
After a night at grandma's, we headed off to Vegas. The only one of the kids who knew where we were going was Cassidey. That was because Brett couldn't keep it a secret and had to blab it to one of the kids. He said it was because he was using it as a bargaining tool to get Cass to raise some of her grades. Yeah, right! :)
Once we got to around Nephi, the kids started asking the ever famous question, "How much longer?" We kept telling them, "20-minutes!" We did that all the way to Cedar City. Seriously, I mean at what age do kids develop a concept of time? When we stopped in Cedar City for gas, I had made some puzzles for the kids to fill out, a Dot-to-Dot with a word puzzle, and also a crossword puzzle. This was going to tell them where we were actually going.
All the kids helped in figuring out the puzzle and when they were done, they looked at us with blank stares and just said, "Ok, we're done, not what?" This is where I'm thinking our kids need to be put in a Disneyland Resource Class or something. I mean one puzzle said, "Come and play! I can't wait to see you!" and the crossword puzzle had all kinds of Disney words as the answer, including the word, Disneyland, which Stoney wasn't able to figure out, and the it said below the puzzle, "Come and play!" and the STILL DIDN'T GET IT! We had to literally spell it out for them that we were going to Disneyland instead of Salt Lake. Once we finally told them, and it registered in their brains, they were really excited.
We stopped one night in Las Vegas, but the kids weren't too impressed with it. I thought they would oooooh & awwwwww over the lights and stuff, but not so much. They wanted to get to California.
We arrived in California around 2 pm and checked into our hotel (The Candy Cane Inn) which was absolutely FABULOUS! I highly recomment this hotel. We decided to unwind for a bit, especially since we had to wait for the family we were sharing the tickets with to show up at our hotel, so the kids went swimming. We finally got the tickets around 4 pm, decided to eat dinner before we went to DL, and then we headed off to DL around 7 pm.
We were shocked at how crowded it was, but once we got our bearing and grew accustomed to the crowds we navigated around really well. We didn't really do any of the fast pass tickets, instead we went to the really popular rides while the parades & fireworks were going off. Because of this we were able to walk-on to most of the really big rides we wanted to do, like Splash Mountain, Materhorn, Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion, etc. Of course there were some rides that it just took forever, and some our kids were willing to wait in line, while others, they didn't want to waste the time.
One of the rides the were willing to wait for was Tower of Terror! It is one of the most AWESOMEST rides I've ever ridden on! The kids loved it and wanted to do it again, but by the time we came out the ride had doubled in length so we decided to forego it. Brody didn't enjoy it too much. Throughout the ride his eyes were as big as saucers and his mouth was open wide! I think he thought he was screaming, but no sound was coming out of his mouth. Poor kid! I think we scared the scream right out of him.
The favorite ride the kids liked and wanted to do over and over again was Splash Mountain. They loved it! Me, well, I don't remember it going to fast or being so bumpy inside, but the plunge down the mountain is always a good time.
The day we spent in California Adventures was a fun time. The weather was pretty cold for California weather, but we all decided we would rather have it that way than scorching hot. The first ride the kids wanted to go on was Grizzley Rapids, you know the one where you all sit on a giant innertube boat and you race through water water rapids. Yeah, well, we were all wearing sweatshirts, and mine was really big. I told all the kids to take their jackets off and I stuffed them inside mine. I then put it in the middle of the boat. Normally their is a sealed canister-thing, but not this time, it was open, but I didn't think it would be a big deal. Boy was I wrong! Half-way through the ride, a HUGE WAVE came over the top of me, soaking me and landing on top of my sweatshirt. Good times! Thank goodness it didn't soak through the jacket onto the other jackets inside. The best part of it all was that I was wear a WHITE T-SHIRT! Well, I was feeling pretty dang sexy, and I'm surprised DL security didn't escort me out stating that this was a family environment. But we did have a good time, even though I really the only one who got wet, which it took me almost the entire day to dry off. Lucky me!
The kids had just as much fun swimming in the swimming pool at the hotel as the did at DL. Every morning they wanted to swim until at least 11 am so we never got to DL until at least 2 pm! Who's kids are these anyway?
When it came time for us to head out, we were going to stop in Las Vegas and spend the night again, but the kids just wanted to get home, so we loaded everything up and headed out for the 12 1/2 long out drive, which actually I thought we made it really good time.
Spring Break was a great time this year. We made some great memories, did some fun things, and most importantly, we spent time together. Look below at some of our SB pictures and see for yourself.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
SPRING BREAK 2009
SPRING BREAK 2009 WAS A SUCCESS!
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