Legoland and Disneyland

My mom flew into Oakland on a Saturday and we packed up the car and headed down to Disneyland Sunday morning. We had our foster child, Reggie, Ainsley, Peggy, Trina, and myself. We decided to take my car and in order to fit we had to borrow a luggage roof rack from our friends – Sarah and Eric. The drive was a little rough at times (6 hours) but overall the kids did great. Thank God for DVD players!! We finally arrived at the Worldmark resort condo (thank you Grandma Wade!!!). My Grandma is such a sweet lady. She let us use her time share in Anaheim and it was beautiful! After dropping the family and checking in I went to park the car in the garage. I start driving up the garage ramp and I heard something. I thought to myself hmmm, I wonder if I shut the luggage roof rack all the way after we emptied the luggage?? So I stopped and got out of the car and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. So I got back in the car and kept driving up the ramp and wham, I heard it again! I stopped the car immediately and got out again and realized that the luggage rack wasn’t clearing the cement beams. I had to turn around and try to get back down and out of the garage and as I maneuvered around the scraping of the roof rack was nail biting and I was worried it was going to be ripped off the roof. I finally managed to get back out and parked in the lower garage that had much higher ceilings, but it had cracked in a couple places :o(. Great way to start the trip!

Next morning we woke up and traveled further south to Legoland (1 hour). We got there and the line of cars to get in was hecka long. Once in the park we had a great time looking at all of the exhibits. It’s amazing what can be done with Lego’s. The Star Wars exhibit was the best and the kids loved it. We had fun on some of the rides and enjoyed building Lego’s at many different Lego stations that we’re set up all around the park. They also had a small aquarium that we visited. It was o.k., but if you are going there, it isn’t worth the extra money. Grandma Peggy bought Mr. Reggie a Lego kit and the kid worked on it the entire way back to the condo. Within 45 minutes, he had it put together – I think he’s going to be an engineer.

It was in the high 60's, but we HAD to go to the pool. Ainsley didn't want to leave the hot tub. The pool was actually quite nice :o).

Disneyland/California Adventure – Tuesday we awoke to a lot of rain!! Trina, my mom and the kids left a little earlier than our foster child and myself-we were in no hurry! First part of the day we got soaked and then it finally cleared up. During the rain storm Trina and Ainsley waited in line to see the princesses for an hour and a half (Trina wasn’t too happy about that) but Ainsley loved it and got a hug from Minnie Mouse. Ainsley also got lucky and saw Tinkerbell and Mary Poppins. Check it out.

Because of the rain all of the cool rides we’re closed down. No Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Carribean, or tea cups. It was a total drag, but we managed. We got to go on the Buzz light year ride with the kids and the entire inside of the ride smelled like feet as everyone was wet. The second part of the day we went to California Adventure. Wow was that cool. We talked to Crush the talking turtle from Finding Nemo. And we went on the Toy Story ride where Ainsley and my mom were laughing hysterically the entire time. They had a cool display of Lightning McQueen and Mater, check it out!!

The second day was much better as the weather was great and all of the rides were open except for Indiana Jones. We went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride several times over and the kids had a ball. One of the best parts of the day was when Trina and I took Reggie on the Matterhorn. The entire ride is in the dark and a roller coaster fashion that jerks you around. Reggie was holding on to me with a death grip and didn’t want to go on it again. Trina and Khalif did their own thing in the morning and my mom and I and the kids did our thing and it seemed to work a little better. The second half of that day we also went to California Adventure and enjoyed the rides. The best ride of the entire trip was at California Adventure. It was called Soar’n California. It was a virtual ride where you were strapped into seats that moved in front of a large screen that was filled with different sites in California. And you we’re literally flying through these sites such as Napa Valley, San Francisco, LA, and Disneyland. The kids enjoyed it so much we had to go on it again. It made Trina a little sick. It was amazing and so real!! We also drove the bumper cars and Reggie drove – check it out. A Bugs life was also fun as we flew through the air in a Chinese box, check it out.

That day we also went on the Grizzly Grrrr water rafting ride. It wasn’t that warm by that time and we knew that we were going to get wet. So we put on our ponchos and hopped on with the kids. The guy that we were on with had already been on the ride and told us that we weren’t going to get wet. After going down a couple of drops we came to one of the final drops and wham we got drenched. I think that guys was a bit surprised to be soaked. Everyone was dying laughing because of shock and comedy. It was a great day and it truly was enjoyable. The next morning we awoke, packed up and made our way back to Northern CA. All in all it was fun with a little stress, but I’m sure the kids will have some memories to share.