Day 1 - Las Vegas
Then we spent the evening in our hotel getting the girls bathed and ready for the second half of our journey. I realized this is Bryns first time on any kind of trip like this. She loved exploring the hotel and checking everything out. It's fun to be on a trip with our whole family rather than a trip without our kids. We took four trips to Russia last year and one to Hawaii without the girls. We all needed this fun time together.
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| Poor Kaelyn exiled to the back of the car, she had the iPad and Signing Time all to herself though so she was happy. |
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| Grab a hand, or two |
Day 2 - California or Bust
Thanks to our early risers we got up and out the door in good time. One things for sure, we won't be sleeping away this vacation. That's okay though, more time to see things and enjoy family time. We checked into our condo around 3 and settled in. The complex has a great little playground that the girls loved playing at. I'm sure we will be hitting it up again. It's literally across the street from Disneyland so we can walk right there.
Around dinner time we found a grocery store and stocked up for the week. It's nice having a kitchen and all this space. I'm glad we opted for a condo over a hotel room.
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| Waiting for our condo to be opened, Jaymi and Bryn gathered all this bark. |
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| Whats funner that playing with a stick? |
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| Finally out of that dang car seat! |
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| One of the girls favorite Father/Daughter activities. |
Day 3 - The Beach
I'm not sure why, but taking Jaymi to the beach has been on my post adoption bucket list from the very beginning. There's just something so magical about the ocean and its something that that she would never have experiences had we not adopted her. Our only big family vacation before this is when we took Kaelyn to Hawaii in 2011 while I was expecting Bryn. It was so fun and I couldn't wait to return. Though this isn't Hawaii it's a close second, we went to Laguna beach. Jaymi and Bryn both had so much fun playing in the water and sand. I wish I had more pictures so I could remember more vividly this time spent together. It's so fun being here with Wayne's brother and his family.
Bryn has been dying to play in the dirt at home so I knew the beach would be right up her ally, and it was. She dug and dumped her little heart out. Jaymi's favorite part was standing in the ocean and letting the waves toss her around. She fell down so many times and even though it scared her every time, she just kept at it. She brought about 30 buckets of water from the ocean to our sand castle building station. Talk about the best physical therapy in the world. She was born to play in the ocean, I wish we lived closer to it, but we will be sure to visit it as often as we can.
Kaelyn wasn't feeling it in the getting wet idea. She was too spoiled with the warm Hawaiin waters. She was excited to swing on the beach playground and did pretty well hanging out in the beach shade tent we brought. She could swing all day long if we let her and the beautiful scenery only made it better.
We were all happy to return back to home base and wash all the left over sand and sticky sunscreen away. We decided to take it easy and have cereal for dinner and relax in our jammies.
I was able to go for a run this morning. One of my favorite things to do on vacation is run. Hopefully I can get out a few more times while we are here.
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| Wayne, Jaymi and our neice |
Day 4 - Disneyland
To say the girls loved Disneyland would be a huge understatement. They had no idea such a place existed and boy oh boy did they have fun. Like the beach, Disneyland has also been on my post adoption bucket list. I remember coming here with my family as a young girl and have always looked forward to coming back with children of my own. Yes it's true, it's so much more fun to see it through the eyes of your own children. Especially our little Russian girl that faced a life so far from and Disney and fun and anything childlike at all. To see the excitement in her eyes and smiles make all the struggles we have faced worth it.
I love that she has no preconceived notions or expectations on this vacation. For all she knows we are five minutes from home, or we moved or something. She is just loving every minute of this adventure. Jaymi loves all the rides and has no reservations about the ones we take her on. If she's tall enough, she is going on it. She loved Splash mountain and Space mountain and just kept asking to go back on them.
Bryn loves the kiddie rides and especially enjoyed the wishing well. I literally had to drag her away from it kicking and screaming, but she was trying to climb in. I don't think that's encouraged or allowed. Kaelyn is not so sure about all this. She has a good time on the outside rides but isn't a fan of the dark ones. She misses her freemdom and just wants to crawl around. Her favorite part of the day was climbing all over the park bench while Bryn slept in the stroller. We all loved the parade. Wow, I didn't expect it to be so cool.
Our nieces were dressed up in the cutest princess dresses that their mom made. She is so talented, Disney should hire her to design their dresses. They are fancier than the actually princesses. Everyone we passed commented on how cute they were. Jaymi enjoyed meeting the princesses and characters and having them sign her autograph book. She will treasure it once we add the pictures to it. She loves flipping through the little photo album we took to Russia on our first visit.
We are having a great time!
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| Happy to be out of the stroller |
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| Waiting in line for Space Mountain |
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| She has no idea whats to come - Space Mountain |
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| As you can tell my niece didn't care too much for Space Mountain |
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| Watching the parade |
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| Tea cups with cousins |
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| Waiting for the monorail, cute girls. |
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| Bryn was wired after such a fun day |
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| Kaelyn was zonked. |
Day 5 - California Adventure
Today we got up a bit early and were able to get in the park and hour before it opened because our cousins are staying at the Disneyland hotel. We headed straight for the new cars land and got in line for the race car ride. At one point I was pushing two strollers while we rounded up everyone else to get in line with us. Such a fun ride, no wonder it is so popular. We moved right through the line but when we got done it was over a two hour wait and it kept breaking down. Jaymi and her cousin loved it! We are so lucky that they are both over 40 inches so they can go on lots of the bigger rides.
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| The new cars ride, we all loved it! |
Next we heads for the Tower of Terror, which we renamed the tower of swkeels to get my niece to ride it. I knew I could convince Jaymi it was fun, and I did. She was pretty scared when we were dropping but would giggle and laugh when it stopped. As we were walking out I asked if she wanted to go again and she said yes so ah went again with dad. Her favorite part was the button the lady and the counter gave her. This statement pretty much sums up 2013 for her ;)
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| Waiting to enter the Tower of Terror |
While we take the big girls on rides the little ones are good to hangout and enjoy wandering around close by. Bryns favorite thing is to push the stroller around, she's pretty good about being careful but every once in a while rams into unsuspecting passersby.
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| The stroller provided hours of entertainment for Bryn |
Next we went on all the kid rides in a bugs life. They all loved this part of the park, except the movie, that was a little scary for them. The little mermaid ride was great too so we went on it twice in a row. The dads were over on thr big roller coaster so I thought we should stay there until they came back. It was slow moving, cool, the kids were strapped down and happy. Definitely the easiest way to keep track of three little girls. Our poor little niece was sick today so she missed out on lots of fun. Hopefully she will get feeling better quick. So sad to be sick on vacation.
After we did a few more rides we went back to our condo for much needed naps. It felt so good to get off our feet for a bit and rest. When we got back to the park we went to the Aladin show. Everyone loved that too! It was a broadway type show that was well loved by us all.
We finished off the night with the World of Color water and light show. It of course was amazing too!
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| World of Color show |
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| Chillin at the condo for lunch and naps, Bryn sporting her ponytail. She is so proud of it! |
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| Best Buddies |
Day 6 - Swimming
Today was our take it easy, rest it up day. We hung out at the condo and lounged around until around noon. Then we walked over to the Disneyland hotel where our cousins are staying and swam with them at the fun pools there. This was Jaymi's first time at a big swimming pool (other than the hot tub in Moscow) and she had so much fun. She loved going down the slides, splashing around and playing with her cousins. If it had been a little warmer we could have stayed out there all day.
Bryn also loved playing in the pool. It's so fun to watch her experience all this as a toddler. She is all over the place and trying out everything the bigs girls do. Kaelyn wasn't really feeling the swimming thing today. Normally she LOVES swimming and splashing around but the water was a bit too cold for her. She and I had a good time lounging in the warmth of the sunlight together though.
After swimming we came back to the condo, got cleaned up and put the girls down for naps. We all had a lot of sleep to catch up on by this point.
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| Jaymi kept on insisting on putting the towel over her face and I couldn't figure out way and then I saw her Dad. She was munchin on crackers through the bottom. |
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| After swimming photo shoot and stair climb. |
For dinner we went over to Dowtown Disney with our family and ate at a Mexican Restaurant. The food was good but the highlight was a guy that came around and made balloon figures for the girls. My neices had him make Rapunzle and Merida and Jaymi got a ballerina. She loved it and was so excited to play with it all night.
After dinner we played over by the Legos store. They had a bunch of Legos set out for the kids to make cars and a track to race them on. They loved this so much, it kept them busy and happy for over an hour. Jaymi got so excited when her car would take off down the track. Bryn was really enjoying the night life and kept trying to climb up on the track or would chuck a wheel or two down to race. She thought she was so funny.
Day 7 - Disney with the masses
We didn't realize when we planned our vacation that Friday was the annual 24 hours of Disney. The park was open from 6:00 am - 6:00 am on Saturday. Needless to say the place was packed! Luckily we had down most of what we wanted to on the first day, so we were still able to have a good time. We were lucky to meet up with Ashley, a girl I met in Russia who was with her mom and brother bringing home their little sister at the same time I was there picking up Jaymi. It was so fun to hang out with her and her fiance for a few hours.
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| Jaymi and Ashley |
We took Jaymi and her cousin on Splash Mountain, their favorite ride, four more times throughout the day. We were able to meet up with a friend of ours that was with her mom adopting her little sister from Russia when I was there in January. It was so fun to see her again and learn more about their family.
In the evening we had front row seats for the Fantasmic show, which we all loved, and then enjoyed the fireworks and music show on our way out the park. At this point it was so packed we could barely make it through the crowd and there were lines and lines of people just getting there.
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| Princess Tiana |
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| Jaymi had her eyes on these rockets since day one. |
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| Jungle Cruise time |
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| Bryn getting comfortable for our second round of the Alice in Wonderland ride. |
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| The Russian portions of "It's a small world", my favorite ride as a kid. |
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| Front row seats for Fantasmic |
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| Plumb wore her out, she slept through the amazing fireworks show we enjoyed while inching our way out of the park. |
Day 8 - Rest, Swim & Chicken
We used today to get ready to head home tomorrow, sleep in, go for a quick dip in the pool and we can't leave Southern California without eating at Mrs. Knotts Chicken. My dad would be very disappointed in us if we did.
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| This little girl was so cute, she came over and stood by Jaymi, looked up at her mom and said, "Mom, we're just talking". She was very concerned when she realized we weren't going to be sitting together.  |
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| Bryn signing her version of "Eat". She's very nonchalant about it. |
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| I was pumped to return home with our suitcase full of clean clothes. Only had to do 3 loads instead of 6 when we got home. |
We have had such a wonderful trip, exhausting of course, but it's worth it to see our kids have so much fun. Makes me appreciate all the vacations my parents took us on growing up. Vacationing as a parent is hard work, but spending time together as a family has been priceless and just what we needed.
