Lessons from Disneyland

1.  Go with Kristin Smith

If you are going to spend the time and expense to visit Disneyland, you should go with this delightful lady.  She knows all the secrets of success and she never tires of the fun at the happiest place on earth.  Seriously, our vacation was so much better because of her.  She planned the order of rides, which rides the the little kids could go on when they couldn't ride with the big kids, and she taught us how to us fast-pass successfully.  Because of Kristin, we hardly waited in line, and we did way more fun stuff than we thought possible.  Thank you, Kristin! 

2.  You don't need a friend in the diamond business,
     You need a friend from Southern California.
It will probably save you more money...depending on how many kids you have!  :)

 

We were really happy that we were able to save $$ with the SoCal discount.

3.  Capture every fun moment with your camera!
This means you will be taking a lot of pictures.
(Kudos to those of you who have the stamina to look at all of ours.)

 

 

4.  If you are going to take a baby, take a newborn.
 They will sleep the whole time.

 This is one of two pictures of Hazel awake.  The rest of the time she slept in the front pack, like this:

(She is the baby you do not see inside the blue sling.)

4.  Visit with some characters.

 Elliot was a little too shy to meet this storm trooper face to face.

 ♪ ♫ I'm Chip, I'm Dale, we're just a couple of crazy rascals out to have some fun...♪ ♫ 

 

 (Molly was too busy coloring to have many pix taken with the characters.  So this one, Horace, sat and colored with her.  He drew the following picture for us, we just had to hand him the crayons.)

 

  5.  Take a nap in the middle of the day.

You really will enjoy the fireworks so much more if you do.  I promise.
We tried it both ways.  See #6.

6.  When the shoe falls in the water, go home.
If you should be so foolish as to not take a nap, and then you should ride Small World...this could happen to you:
We were waiting in line.  Anna was dancing around.  Her shoe fell off.  Into a boat.  The nice lady in the boat tried to throw it back to us, but she had terrible aim.  So it just bounced off a railing, into the water.  I muscled my way through the line to tell the ride operators.  They promised to rescue the shoe.  We rode the ride (I don't think I saw a thing in Small World, I was too busy looking in the water for that stupid shoe).  When we emerged from the ride, the cast members were holding the lost shoe.  I cheered.  Then I heard a collective gasp.  I turned to see Elliot fall out of the boat.  I am not making this up.  Aunt Kristin said, "I've never seen that happen before."  The night went downhill from there, culminating in me trying to carry two (crying) babies back to the hotel, only to find that I was locked out.  We had to wait to get into our hotel for 45 minutes.  I am sure all of that drama could have been averted if we had taken a nap.  :)

7.  Enjoy the details
This is for the grown-ups, the kids will be too busy having fun to even notice. 

 

There is actually a baby duck just outside the picture.  This momma had 13 babies.  My brood feels small by comparison.  

  

Total Fun: 10 grams

 

Jill used to say, "Bib Bodi da Boo."

 

This must have been how Elliot rode Small World.

 I want to live in Toad Hall.

 

Sugar, Salt, and Fat (truth in labeling).

7.  If you are going to go all the way to California, 
Don't forget to visit the beach.
If you are lucky, you might run into an awesome family called the Rudds.  I heard they go there every year. 

 

8.  Gratuitous Flashback Photos
You should take some of them.

 

Jill in December 2005

Jill (and co) in May 2012

Molly in December 2005

 Molly in May 2012

Grand Canyon Vacation

Warning:
This is a very, very, very long post. But there is a good reason it is so long.
Because it is about what can only be called "basically the most awesome vacation ever".
And the coolest people in the world who went on it.

(But seriously, it is pretty long.)

Thursday:
We woke up early and jumped into the car. We couldn't wait to start our vacation!! It's a 500+ mile trip to the Grand Canyon so we planned to make plenty of pit stops.

Our first stop was Cove Fort.

It is a fort built by Church members to protect travelers in a deserted area of Southern Utah.

It has very thick walls with little gun holes everywhere.

Dave was really excited by the telegraph station with some kind of liquid batteries.

Jamie thought our missionary tour guide was cute.

On the way we picked up a hitch-hiker. Oops, sorry.

We stopped at a scenic overlook,

with perhaps a view of the beginnings of the Grand Canyon.

After only 10 hours of car travel we arrived at our little "cabin"; actually an 0ver-the-garage-apartment. The kids were so excited.
(Really they were!)


Friday:
We visited the Grand Canyon.
We met our cool friends the Rudes in the parking lot, before heading up to see the Canyon.

We were all so excited we nearly went crazy.

Our first glimpse of the canyon was breathtaking.

We went to a presentation by a Ranger before heading out to explore.

We checked out some rocks,

more rocks,

and the awesome views.

(Smiths tried not to be jealous just because the Rudes are more photogenic.)

Aww, just kidding. Smiths are cute too.

After some hiking along the rim trail, we stopped for lunch.
We have to say, the Grand Canyon has some great picnic areas!

Then we checked out the Bright Angel Trail (which goes all
the way down to the bottom of the canyon.) Notice the mule train,

as well as the crazy trees which appear to be growing in sheer rock.
The daddies and the older children hiked a tiny bit of the trail.
Rim perspective:

Trail perspective:

We hiked around the rim until we found an ice cream shop.
It was definitely worth the walk.

Then we waited at the shuttle stop to take our bus back to the parking lot.

We had achieved what can only be called an "Arizona tan".
A light, even covering of fine red dust. Un/Fortunately, it washes off.

Saturday:
We visited two sites in adjacent parks. Both were very cool! We started out at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument.

It's a park where you get to walk around a recently erupted volcano (it only went off 900 years ago, so it's really young in volcano years). Many parts of the mountain still have not reforested

and the ground is littered with chunks of volcanic rock.

Underground are hollow tubes that the magma ran through.
We found one that was blocked off.

It sure would be neat to explore in there, if you weren't an
afraid-of-the-dark-claustrophobe or anything. He's not .

We also visited Wupatki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument.

There are 4 different ruins sites within a few miles of each
other (we only went to 2 before the children got tired).

What makes them extra cool is that you get to walk right into
the ruins. Watch out though, because they have low doorways.

It was pretty windy at the ruins, but still also very hot.

Poor Molly didn't feel too well on Saturday. She threw up
a few times. But she tried hard to be cheerful anyway.

The two boys had a great time at the ruins.
(I'm not biased but aren't they cute?!)

We tried to teach them to follow the rules:

Really we did.
(But they were so proud of the places they climbed to.)


Sunday:
We played games in the "cabin" and went for a walk to the park.
The girls had fun.

The boys had fun.

Even the grownups had fun.


Monday:
We drove back home. Yes we made better time. (Dave believes it was because he was driving, while Jamie politely points out that we made less stops.)
On the way home, we stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam (which creates Lake Powell). We were going to take a tour, but we were 20 mins too late. (Note to self: check tour times before departing.) There was still a pretty cool view from the visitors center. Plus they had bathrooms.


p.s. During our vacation, Elliot climbed on everything. While this was sometimes aggravating, we have decided we need to enroll him into a climbing school of some kind as he appears to have real talent.