At the beginning of November we flew home to the States for a nice month long vacation. Since we’ve been serving two consecutive tours overseas the military pays for roundtrip tickets to the States for us since they didn’t have to pay to move us, so needless to say it made flying to the States extremely affordable for me….not so much for you the taxpayer :) Anyways, whenever we go to the States as a family, which isn’t very often, we try to make sure that we take a family vacation as well instead of just visiting relatives i.e. me laying on my parents’ couch watching tv while Nate plays video games and someone else entertains Reese. This time we decided that with the baby coming we wanted to make our family vacation all about Reese and the things she likes to do. We have some friends that live down in San Diego that we wanted to visit so we decided to take a nice long weekend trip to Southern California and take Reese to all the fun things they have to do down there. We had planned to go to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park and between the military discounts each offers and Reese still being free everywhere, it wasn’t going to cost us much to have a very full vacation. We invited my family to go along with us since A. we didn’t feel like we were really going to get to spend much time with them this trip and B. we were planning on stealing their car to drive down there anyways, so on Veterans Day weekend Nate, Reese, my mom, my niece and I all piled in to my Aunt’s car and drove down to Anaheim. My parents love to take the grandkids to Disneyland, it’s kind of their Nana and Papa thing that they always do whenever Reese comes out so they said since we were going to be going right by there anyways we should throw an extra day onto our trip and do Disneyland and of course we didn’t complain because Reese is INSANELY in love with Mickey Mouse and all the Disney characters right now.
We left Sacramento Wednesday and drove to Anaheim which really wasn’t a bad drive at all, I remember it being worse in my childhood and besides my niece rotating between asking for a snack and asking when we were going to be there every five minutes, it wasn’t so bad. That evening we wandered over to downtown Disney to just hang out and walk around and as soon as we got there Reese started freaking out over all the images of Mickey, she was shouting and pointing out every single picture of him. We went in the Disney store there and my mom ended up getting her a Minnie Mouse suitcase which she was in love with and proceeded to drag it all over the place and did not want to leave it behind at any point during the trip, she tried to take it to the park with us the next morning and was quite upset when we told her she wouldn’t need it.
The next day my dad flew down and met up with us and we went to Disneyland. While my mom picked him up at the airport, Nate and I took Reese and Ava over to the park to start the day. The second we walked in the characters were all there so we spent some time wandering from line to line so the girls could meet Mickey, Pluto, Donald and Goofy. Finally the characters dispersed so we went off to Fantasyland to ride some rides. Reese loves the carousel so we had to ride that a few times and she also was a big fan of the Dumbo ride. I think we ended up going on most of the rides before my parents even showed up which was good because the park ended up getting REALLY busy that day, I guess that’s what you get on a holiday weekend. When my parents got there we decided we’d “let” them take the girls on Peter Pan a.k.a. the ridiculously long lined kids ride, while we went off and found churros to eat…we’re such selfless people. By the time they were done there Toontown had opened up so we went back there so they could do that area of the park. When we went to Disneyland in March Reese was still a little to short for the rollercoaster there but she was tall enough this time so she got to go on it with Nate, I was a little sad that I couldn’t take her her first time but I’ll just hold that fact against the baby for the rest of his life :) We spent the rest of the day wandering to various rides and just having fun at the park, I really can’t stress enough how packed it was, I think the only “adult” ride we rode was Pirates of the Caribbean and that had the longest line I’ve ever seen it have and I’ve been to Disneyland enough times to know. We left the park for dinner, Nate and I were meeting up with our friends Lara and Alan while my parents took the girls to dinner, and we had the intention of going back later on that night but Reese and Ava pretty much crashed after dinner and Nate and I didn’t have the energy to go back after such a long day either so we just called it a night. Overall I’d say it was one of the best trips to Disneyland, Reese was so excited by everything that it made everything seem so magical again.
On Friday we packed up and drove down to San Diego and went to the Wild Animal Park. Nate would tell you the best part of that day was this coke machine that he found at Jack in the Box that dispersed like 130 different combinations of soda, he really loved that. It was such a hot day as we were wandering through the animal park and I was sweltering, it’s a very spread out place so it’s not like at the zoo where you’re stopping and seeing things all the time, you walk a pretty good distance to see things. They had a pond with duck food which was one of our first stops and Reese loved feeding the ducks. Then we went on this tram tour that takes you out to see the animals kind of interacting in a natural habitat. It was amazing to see rhinos just moving about freely instead of in a small pen like you usually see and Reese enjoyed pointing out the giraffes that we were constantly seeing. It was a pretty cool park and it was interesting to learn about the conservation things they do there. 
On Saturday we went to Sea World and it was another hot hot day, it was actually nice to have such hot weather because we knew it was cold back in Germany so we were soaking up the warmth, but I only have maternity pants since maternity shorts are not necessary where we live so I was hot all the time. Reese enjoyed seeing the animals at Sea World but she wasn’t that in to the animal shows, she got a little distracted during them and it we were sitting in the sun as well so that probably played a role as well. One thing she did really enjoy was touching the starfish and sea urchins and feeding the bat rays, though Nate did most of the feeding of the bat rays while Reese just dropped the fish when they came near.
Sunday morning our friend Tyler met up with us and we all went to the San Diego Zoo, that is one massive zoo. Reese had a ton of fun that day, she loved seeing all the animals and she knows what a lot of animals are that I doubt most kids her age do so she was really excited about seeing the koalas, kangaroos, and meerkats among others. I think the highlight for her that day was the petting zoo, she got to go in the pen with the sheep and goats and pet and feed them. Reese loves goats so after she scared a few of them back to the roped off area she finally found one that enjoyed her adoration and fed it for the rest of the time. At one point a huge sheep was eating the food where she’d been taking it for the goat so she shoves the sheep out of the way, literally she puts her shoulder into this sheep and just keeps pushing until it moves and she can get to the food. Nate got video of it so I’ll see if I can get him to load it on here later because it’s pretty funny. After the zoo we took my parents and niece over to the airport to fly home and then we spent that evening and the next day hanging out with our friends Tyler and Stephanie. It was fun to get to see them again and Stephanie made us lots of yummy cookies too. We finally left San Diego around 9 that night and drove back to Sacramento, luckily we had my mom to watch Reese the next day so we could sleep.
It was such a great vacation and we all had so much fun. For days later Reese would tell us that we were going to see animals or that we were going to see Mickey Mouse, I’m just glad we were able to do a trip like this before the baby came so that we could really focus on the things that she likes and wanted to see and do.
2 comments:
ah that sounds like so much fun! I can't wait for A to be a little older it will be a blast to have two kids freaking out over mickey and the princesses.
Sounds like you guys had an awesome time! And it makes us even more excited that Reese had a great time at Disneyland because we're taking Rachel in July! We miss you guys!
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