California Vacation

After thinking about going to Disneyland for about a year, we finally decided to just book our vacation and go. We all had a great time and were excited to have Jeff and Kelly's family with us.

Our trip started out with a two hour delay with an additional hour delay as we waited for our luggage to arrive at LAX. The delay in baggage caused one passenger to scream obscenities and kick the conveyor belt as hard as he could. He even yelled at Jordan, who was sitting on the edge of the conveyor belt while he rested his hand on the belt, to get off. Jordan turned around and looked at him and then turned back around and stuck his hand back on the belt. He was then called an idiot but it didn't seem to bother Jordan who was already used to this man's ranting and raving. The man later apologized to everyone letting us know his mother just died but then went on yelling and kicking until his luggage arrived. Someone finally called the cops and 1 then 2 then 20 cops come running down the hall for this one man who you actually just have to feel sorry for. After all was said and done our non red-eye flight ended up getting us in our hotel bed at around 4 AM. So much for a good nights sleep.

Our next three days were spent between Disneyland and California Adventure. Dylan's favorite ride was Winnie the Pooh. It was funny because we thought he was still too little to ride the big rides so we rotated going on them. Later we found out he was big enough to go on most of them. The first big ride we put him on was the Tower of Terror. He got off the ride and told Rich "I'm mad". He didn't know what he was getting into and was mad that he got tricked into going on it. He did wish he could go on everything though and after eating lunch he would tell me that he was bigger and wanted to measure himself. Jordan loved most of the rides but was like his Dad in complaining endlessly about having to go on It's a Small World.
Brendan has always been more scared about going on some of the rides, especially Tower of Terror. He wouldn't go on it but would go on the Maliboomer which to me is much worse. He got more and more brave and by the end of the three days he was riding the Tower of Terror.
On our fourth day we drove to Sea World. It was a cloudy, cold day. Let's just say we were freezing. (Maybe we are just used to our 85 degree weather.) We still had a good time and really enjoyed seeing the shows and feeding the dolphins.

While we were gone, Maui had a huge storm that caused flooding, 2 to 3 day power outages, schools closing, a few houses to be washed away, left some areas without water, roads closed, trees down, and beaches closed. We heard stories of customers getting walked around Safeway with a flashlight and an employee writing down what the customer got and rounded the total to the nearest dollar. We missed all the excitement, but on the upside the boys only missed one day of school instead of four and we had electricity. When we got back it was pretty much back to normal but some of the beaches were still closed. What a great reminder to be prepared.