Cali Trip!!!

We went with Brian's family to California from June 13th to the 20th. It was a lot of fun but kind of a struggle traveling with a teething one year old!! Here are the chronicles of our journey!
Day 1
We left around 9am on Saturday. Hayden did very well on tt he trip. He sat between his cousins and they entertained him very well. We stopped in Blythe at Denny's for lunch and after that he pretty much slept the entire trip!


When we got to the house the owner was still there (She was actually there at the house alot during the week we were there...I thought that was odd, but oh well!) We figured out where everyone was staying, made grocery lists, and attempted to go swimming...the water was COLD though! We turned the jacuzzi on, and once that warmed up we spent our evening there. After a late dinner of pizza, we retired for the evening :)
Day 2
We swam a little in the morning and then went to the mall to do some shopping. Hayden had a great time at the mall, we found a really yummy candy store and we got him some chocolate covered raisins. He LOVED them! I got a DELICIOUS cheesecake caramel apple.Here's a picture of Hayden enjoying his candy. You can't see his chocolate mustache very well.


Hayden also had a grand old time splashing in the fountain


But he did NOT enjoy the carousel. In the picture he doesn't look unhappy, but he screamed for a good part of the ride. The only reason we took him on it was because he ACTED interested in it, pointing at it and staring. But once we got on, he screamed and cried. We put him on a horse next to his cousin Cherish, and that calmed him down a little bit. Once the ride actually went he calmed down a little but for some reason he refused to hold on to the bar, when Brian tried helping him hold on he would scream.


We celebrated my brother in law Sean's birthday that night. We had steak and shrimp. Most of Brian's family doesn't like seafood, but I thought the shrimp was marvelous! :)
Day 3
We woke up early and headed to the Disneyland Hotel to eat at Goofy's Kitchen. It's a buffet where you can meet and take pictures with the characters. They also have a wonderful build your own omelette bar. Mmmm! We got a picture of all the grandkids (12) with Pluto.


Hayden wasn't thrilled with Pluto. He screamed and cried when he first saw him. We took several pictures with Pluto, as a family, the whole group and just the grandkids. By the end of the picture taking, Hayden had calmed down a little, but still would not go near him. While we got seated and started getting our food, Baloo (the bear from Jungle Book) came by,


Chip and Dale (my personal favorites!) came by,Goofy came by (and was picking on my sister in law LOL!!), Princess Aurora came by (Hayden was acting all shy around her, it was sooo cute!)


I think that was it. Last year there were a whole lot more characters that walked through. Afterwards we did some shopping at downtown disney. I was kicking myself because it was his naptime and normally I can put him in my baby carrier and he'd fall asleep. Well I forgot it so we had to carry him the first part of the morning and then we borrowed a stroller from my sister in law. Hayden hasn't been in a stroller much, so he wasn't too thrilled to be in it, and it took him a LONG time to fall asleep. Actually he didn't fall asleep until we were leaving (a good 2-3 hours later than he should have)and he woke up when we got home He was so tired, but I couldn't get him back to sleep. That was a pattern I saw most of the trip. His nap schedule got so messed up! Later in the afternoon I got him down for another short nap, and I took a nap too! In the late afternoon we went to the IMAX to see "Night at the Museum 2" Hayden got to spend the evening with his Grandparents. They took him in the stroller and walked around the HUGE outdoor mall while we watched the movie. It was a great movie. It's been a long time since I've been to the movie theaters. I can literally count on one hand the number of movies I've seen since I had Hayden!!

Day 4
Sorry, we were too busy running around to get any pictures :)
DISNEYLAND!!! We woke up early so we could get to Disneyland when it opened (at 8) it was scheduled to stay open until midnight and we were all detirmined to stay until close! I remembered my baby carrier (thank heavens!!) this time! Hayden actually fell asleep in it before we even got into the park. We got on the Indiana Jones ride first (the wait time was GREAT!), Brian's parents took Hayden and went on the Jungle Cruise (which they said he really enjoyed!). After that we went on the Pirates of the Carribean ride. Hayden seemed to enjoy it. He really tensed up and held onto my hand really tight on the drops. After that ride we did some shopping and waited for the rest of the family to meet up with us. We had reservations at the Blue Bayou (the restaurant you can see on the Pirate's ride). You have to make reservations 2 months in advance, and some friends of my inlaws said that they have a great lunch menu. The food was great, the service was great, and at the end of the meal everyone was STUFFED! I got the Monte Cristo sandwich (it's basically a ham and swiss sandwich, but the bread was fried in egg batter, like french toast, and they gave us blackberry jam to dip it in. DELICIOUS!). The sandwich came with some really good scalloped potatos, and asparagus. It also came with a cup of chicken gumbo, which was really spicy (I'm a wimp) but it was really good. Hayden got a kids meal. Macaroni and cheese, I tried some of it, it was the best mac 'n' cheese I've ever tasted! He enjoyed it too! Hayden actually ate solids really well the entire vacation. I was surprised because before we left he wasn't interested in a lot of the foods he had originally liked! After lunch, Grandma and Grandpa took Hayden to toon town, and Brian and I and David (brother in law) and Chelsea (niece) went on Splash Mountain. I ended up being forced to sit in the front of the ride and got SOAKED! Good thing it was nice outside! Being drenched to the bone actually felt nice! We met back up in toon town, Hayden had been napping. He woke up shortly after we met up so we decided to go on "It's A Small World" since it was closed both times that Hayden and I had previously been at Disneyland. He REALLY enjoyed this ride. He was pointing at everything and looking around with wide eyes. After that we attempted to go on the toon town ride, but it broke down shortly after we got on. The ride was a taxi cab and it had a steering wheel that Hayden was having a great time playing with. After sitting for what seems like forever the employees got us out. We then went on a little rollercoaster in toon town, and then headed over to the Autopia ride (which had the world's LONGEST line)Grandpa took Hayden shopping while we waited in line, and then got him to take another nap (HOORAY!). We stopped to get dinner at a pizza buffet near Space Mountain. None of us were really hungry since we had such a huge lunch. I ended up sharing a salad with Brian's mom and splitting some garlic bread with Brian. Hayden woke up during dinner and was NOT a happy camper. Brian wanted to go on Star Tours when we were done eating. I didn't want to leave a grumpy baby with his grandparents so I sat out that ride. (I've been on it a billion times, so it was no big deal). My father in law and I walked around while we waited and tried to get Hayden to sleep with no success. Poor little guy was pooped and it was only 8ish. When the rest of the group got out of star tours we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which Hayden was able to go on. He really seemed to enjoy it! After the ride we made our way over to see Fantasmic. I was really excited to see it because I've heard it was amazing. Well, did I mentioned that Disneyland was PACKED?? Well it was. It took us forever to make our way over to the lake, and when we did, there was NO PLACE FOR US TO SIT. Yeah, we all got a little cranky, and decided it was NOT worth it to deal with the crowds. One of the kids wanted to go on the carousel so we walked all the way back and the kids rode it while most of the adults sat there and looked EXHAUSTED. Hayden was SOOO fussy, and I was DONE. I could care less about making in until midnight. Brian wanted to do some shopping so the three of us, Brian's parents and his sister and her daughter started making our way through main street. We looked through a few stores and at the last store, I could tell everyone just wanted to be done. So I went looking for Brian. I had Hayden in my Mei Tai carrier. The store was packed. I accidentally ran into a guy and he got an attitude with me!!! I couldn't believe that this was the happiest place on earth, especially at that time in the evening. Most people I saw looked tired and ready to go home! The trek back to our vehicles seemed like it took forever! And once we got there we had to wait for the other half of the group who decided to go on the "Finding Nemo" ride. It was such a long wait. I tried nursing Hayden to sleep in the van. It wasn't too comfortable but Hayden finally drifted off to sleep. Normally I would be perfectly fine holding him while he slept, but my arms were tired. So I tried buckling him into the carseat. Yeah. That didn't work, he woke up and started SCREAMING! My sister in law Charlene, turned on the van and started driving around the parking lot and that got Hayden back to sleep. I was so grateful that she did that. I was about to cry because I was so tired and frustrated with Hayden's fussiness. Hayden was out after that. When we got back to the house he slept through me taking him out of the carseat and taking him upstairs to bed.
Day 5
I had made arrangements with a couple girls from a parenting forum that I hang out on, to meet up. So unfortunately I couldn't sleep in as much as I would have liked. We met at a park nearby the rental house. One of the girls (Carrie) was from Orange and she was there with her hubby and two little girls, and the other girl (Alix) was from San Diego, and she brought her little boy, who's almost 2. The first part of the meetup wasn't so great. Hayden refused to play in the sand with Alix's little boy, he wanted to run all over the place and would have a tantrum if I brought him back to the sand box so I could talk to Alix and Carrie. I finally decided that he was tired. I put him in the mei tai and nursed him to sleep. I really enjoyed meeting Alix and Carrie. They use cloth diapers too! I haven't met too many others who do, so that was cool. It was really nice to put a face to the names of the people I talk to every day (this forum is a fairly small community compared to other parenting boards)Plus Carrie and her husband play World of Warcraft, the video game that Brian and I play together! So we had an added connection! We talked for a few hours and then sat in the shade and gave our kids a snack. Hayden woke up by then and I gave him some goldfish. He actually ended up feeding me most of his snack, which I was ok with. I think it's so cute when he offers his food to me!
Here's a pic of the 3 of us and our kids :)


When we got home, Hayden and I went swimming for a little bit, ate lunch and then Hayden took another nap. Wednesday was a very relaxing day after having a very hard day the day before! We watched "College Road Trip" that evening. It was a very cute movie. Hayden stayed up for the whole movie and was being hilarious. He was running around like crazy and jumping on his cousin's air mattresses. I should have gotten a video of it. Everyone was cracking up because of him!
Day 6
We slept in as late as we could and then prepared to go to the beach (Newport Beach). We got there at around noon. Brian took Hayden into the water, and although it was cold, he was having a blast. I walked with him in the water for a little while until he lost interest and then we decided to play in the sand. Hayden loved the sand. Brian's nieces and Brian and I were making a moat and a wall for our sand castle that we never got around to building. Hayden had a great time trying to tear down our wall and just examining the sand. After a while though he started getting cranky. So I took him to the showers and got most of the sand rinsed off of him and got him down for a nap. I had forgotten to have someone put sunscreen on my back (I got everywhere else, just not my back) so I REALLY ROASTED my back. Here's a picture.


Ouch is an understatement! I stayed in the shade the rest of the time and Hayden slept on me for over an hour. The only reason he woke up is because I HAD to move him. I really had to pee and when I handed him to his Grandpa, he woke up and of course, wasn't happy. We left shortly after that and got KFC for dinner. I slathered my back in aloe vera gel and aquaphor cream (the landlady was there when we got back from the beach and she said that was a good thing to put on sunburns.)After dinner I took some tylenol and Hayden and I went to bed. It was a rough night, I didn't sleep well at all.
Day 7
Because of my lack of sleep, when Hayden woke up in the morning I put Brian in charge of getting him dressed and feeding him breakfast so I could go back to sleep for a little while. Brian's brother Sean and his family had bought a 2 day park hopper to Disneyland and California Adventures so they were gone all day (We all thought they were crazy for wanting to go deal with the crowds AGAIN!!). Brian's sister Darlene and her family were leaving that day after lunch. So it was a pretty quiet day. We went to another outdoor mall and did some shopping. We got some really cute outfits for Hayden from Ross, and also a really cute pair of Robeez shoes that were originally 40 bucks! (We got them for 8!)We also found a new wallet for Brian and some books at Barnes and Noble. And a steering wheel toy for Hayden :) We went home, ate dinner, relaxed and enjoyed our last evening in Cali. :(
Day 8
We woke up early and got everything packed up and ready to go. We took off at 10:30ish. Hayden fell asleep pretty quickly. We stopped for lunch at Wendy's and I stayed in the car and ate while Hayden slept. He woke up right as I was done eating and I took him inside the restaurant to get him some lunch. Then we were off again. We stopped at the outlet mall in Palm Springs and spent waaaay too long shopping there. We were looking for some new shoes for Brian (who has big feet and it's hard to find him shoes he likes). We were unsuccessful, but we did find me some shirts, boardshorts, and shoes, and also got a couple pairs of cute little vans for Hayden. :) Hayden fell asleep for a few more hours once we were on our way. We didn't really want to stop for dinner, but we did anyway at about 7ish. We went to Taco Bell. Hayden woke up when we stopped. We ate quickly and were on our way again. Hayden was ready to be done traveling. From the time we passed Tonopah until we pulled up into our driveway, he was fussing and crying. It was awful. So that was our wonderful trip. Overall it was fun. But it really messed up Hayden's schedule. I used to laugh at parents who didn't want to take their kids out at a certain time of day because it would mess up their schedule...well now I completely understand, and I have never had Hayden on a strict schedule!!!