Anaheim Family Reunion

Every year my family plans a family trip together. It's been a few years since Jay and I have been able to go due to his work, but this year my sisters told me they were thinking of going to Disneyland and asked if we would be in charge of planning the trip since we live here (and it was definitely time for us to be in charge since the last family trip we planned was before Jack was born).

The first part of June we rented a house down in Anaheim a few miles away from Disneyland. It had 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, a pool, hot tub and a nice open kitchen and living room. We had a few issues with the house, but all in all it worked out.

Watching a show

We stayed a whole week, and I'm a little sad it wasn't longer because that week seriously flew by. Most everyone showed up Saturday and so we just played Saturday and Sunday.

Story time

On Monday we went to Corona del Mar beach. The kids had a blast. Jack was great, but Claire is just so hard at the beach right now. She wanted to be in the water, but when her lips started turning blue and we took her out to get warm she was  screaming mad. She just wanted to play and kept charging right into the water without any hesitation. It was a little exhausting!

Tuesday we hit California Adventure. Even though we were there during the summer, I felt like we were able to do everything we wanted to and made good use of our day. We stayed almost until it closed.

Wednesday was another relaxing day. My sisters and mom ended up going to the beach, but we opted out since Claire was tired and I figured she could use a good nap and an early bedtime. I knew if she was tired the next day at Disneyland, it was going to be a fight to get her in the stroller or to sit still in a ride or be patient waiting in lines. So we stayed at the house to swim and get the kids to be early.

Thursday we went to Disneyland. Again, we got to go on all the rides we wanted and even stayed until they closed at midnight. The younger kids (4 and under) all fell asleep in the strollers so we were able to take the bigger kids on the bigger rides. The only bad part of the day was when we lost my nephew Max for about 10 min. Luckily it was later so it was less crowded and he was able to find  a worker to help him and wasn't separated from us too long. Then about 10 min later, we lost my mom. All of our cell phones had died and she, Jay and my BIL Brian went on a ride together and then got separated as they were heading back to us. It took us about 10 minutes to find her after going to all the rides we had talked about doing after. But we found her. That added some excitement to our evening. Ha! But it was a great day and I thought it was a blast. Of course if you can't tell by now, I kind of love Disneyland.

Disneyland!!

Friday we headed to a kids' museum called Pretend City. The kids loved it and had a great time. But of course we hit traffic on the way back to Anaheim, and the normal 15 minute drive became an hour. Ugh.

Paddling the canoe! I think we made up more than half of the paddlers.

Then Saturday everyone was off and headed home. We had a great time, and I wish we could've spent more time together!