Vacation Taskmaster

Chris has a theory about vacations, we must be doing something practically every second of every day. He does let us sleep, but he wants us up early and we go to bed late. Case in point, our trip to Disneyland last week. The kids were on track break and thanks to a tax refund it was the perfect time for our vacation. Last week was also the first week the park had extended hours and was open until 11 p.m. Even better value for our dollar if you ask Chris, but it also meant it was the beginning of spring break season.
Chris would use all of the patience he could muster when we would rest for lunch for more than 20 min. To feed into the insanity that is going on vacation with Chris, he found some software (Ride Max) that will plan your Disney day down to the minute. Yes it tells you what time you should get in line, how long you should wait, how long the ride is and when you should be getting fast passes. I will admit that it worked pretty well the first day, but it's hard to stay on a schedule with young and exhausted children in tow.

Chris was addicted to gathering fast passes and he had up to 65 at any given time (you'll have to ask him). We thought since we went on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday that we wouldn't have to deal with insane crowds, but apparently Disneyland is the place to be on St. Patrick's Day. Even California Adventure was packed, I have never seen so many people there (and we have been there on a weekend during the summer)! We had all been up late the night before and Chris woke us up at 6:30 in the morning so we did not watch the fireworks let alone make it to the 11 pm close time.

Wednesday the crowds were much better, but I think the kids exhaustion from the previous day had carried over, because they were doing their best Grumpy imitations and we had even gone back to the hotel to take a two hour break. In their defense every one but Dalin had recently been sick (Kaylee was sick while we were there), and they are just kids who don't share their dad's insanity. Dalin was the only one who didn't complain, and that is only because he had a stroller to sleep in.
Thursday we met up with Aunt Emily and Jayden and I think they re-energized us because the kids had the best attitudes of the whole week. We didn't go back to the hotel for a break and we didn't have lunch until 4:00 but there was very little complaining. We were so proud of everyone. We were finally able to see the fireworks which were fantastic. There is a part where Tinker Bell flies in front of the castle and I heard Dalin, who is on my shoulders say, "I knew it was him." A few minutes later Tinker Bell came back and I pointed her out to Dalin saying, "Look there's Tinker Bell." Dalin tells me very matter of factually, "No that's Buzz Lightyear!" That was the "him" he was talking about before and there was no convincing him otherwise. I think we did all of the rides we wanted and even some we didn't so it was a success.
Friday we drove to Huntington Beach to to see the ocean and build sandcastles. It was over cast and windy so it was pretty chilly, but that didn't stop Dalin from running around with just his bathing suit on, we were at the beach after all. He wouldn't put his shirt and jacket on until after he fell in the ocean water.


There was a Farmers Market on the pier so we bought some fabulous strawberries and oranges. Being the savvy travelers we are, we left for home about 5:00. We were able to experience my favorite part of California, rush hour traffic. The trip home felt like it took for-ev-er. Luckily we had all of Saturday to rest and recover.