Let's Go!

Our trip to California has been in year in the making. When Shannon asked me to be in her wedding last year, I was very honored and excited! We started saving our money and getting vacation time arranged for Bill. Shannon brought me the bridesmaid dress at Christmas. We got our tickets back in April when I had time to sit down with Shannon in Switzerland and figure out airports, flights, etc. Got the dress altered. Got a rental car and a two day pass to Disneyland for the kids. Booked a hotel room and planned out our days between sightseeing and bridal party events. Bought a TomTom (which was GREAT!) and talked up the trip to the kids. Packed up clothes for Heather for 8 days plus the wedding, packed up 20 outfits of Kailey plus two outfits for the wedding since she still has not so great potty days, and clothes for me and Bill.

At 4:30am last Tuesday, the alarm went off, we took showers, dressed the kids and headed off to the airport at 5:00am. Worked our way thru TSA and made it to our gate by 6:00am for our 7:45am flight from Dulles to Long Beach. Arrived at the gate and found that our flight had mechanical problems and would need an hour to research the possibility of a fix. In the meantime, please enjoy these breakfast meal vouchers and we'll get back to you. It was still within the time frame to fix the plane and make up time in the air and arrive at Long Beach at 10am, as scheduled. But, alas, the plane was not repairable and a new, empty flight was called for from Orlando. Don't worry, it will be empty, we'll refuel and get you all on your way. But, it will be at least 11:00 before we can board you all. Oh, and if you didn't see it already, there appear to be some clouds in the distance. It appears that it's raining pretty hard; you know that will probably delay the flight a little longer. Let's make it 11:30.

So, between 7am and 11am, we played with other kids in the airport, walked around, took many trips to the potty and enjoyed an early lunch at Potbelly's in the airport, courtesy of JetBlue. By 11:50, we boarded the airplane (5 and 1/2 hours later than scheduled) and prepared for the afternoon flight with two kids. JetBlue has DirectTV and we were counting on watching Playhouse Disney all morning. However, since that broadcast ends at noon, we were now stuck with the hope that getting the kids up at 4:30am would be worth an afternoon nap. It was.

We had an uneventful flight and arrived in Long Beach at 3:30, only 5 and 1/2 hours later than we were scheduled. Yuck. We got our rental car, carseats, TomTom directions and headed out to Mission Viejo, CA to our hotel.

The hotel was great! The best feature of the hotel was the complementary dinner. Like most hotels, the Ayres Hotel serves a complementary breakfast. However, unlike other places, two weeks ago it started serving complementary dinner and drinks between 5-7pm. This was great with two kids! We didn't have to go back out every night for food that would have been wasted since the kids hardly eat dinner. The food was similar to college dining hall food; decent, but not awesome. They did offer beer and wine with the meal, so that made up for it. We arrived to the hotel with enough time to unpack and head to the complementary dinner. Finished dinner and the kids moved on to the pool.

After some time in the pool and hot tub, we were able to convince Heather and Kailey that it was time for bed even thought, as Heather pointed out, it was still light out. They got up at 4:30am and even thought it was only 7:30pm in California, it was like 10:30pm at home. So, without too much effort, they were able to get to sleep.

Knowing the kids would probably be up early, we also decided it would be best to sleep as well. So, by 9pm, everyone was sound asleep.