College #3 of this whirlwind tour: UCLA. We made it down to Los Angeles to meet up with the R. family for our personal tour.
Can't beat the guides.
Especially this cutie. He made sure we didn't miss a single important bush ;).
We loved getting to see the campus.
I'd forgotten how beautiful it is.
Bean fell in love. Which could be a bad thing since they have such a low acceptance rate.
But I'll be honest, my favorite part of this school visit was getting to meet up with friends who we hadn't seen in almost 2 years. It was so fun to catch up for a couple hours. And if Bean does end up here, it will be a great excuse to come down more often so we don't have to go 2 years between visits.
I've been wanting to take this budding Paleontologist to the La Brea Tar Pits and Natural History Museum in LA all year. We finally had a double excuse to head down that way when good friends adopted their first baby. We drove down after I dropped Peanut off at school on Friday and spent the weekend exploring this amazing history of the area, cuddling the baby, and playing games with friends.
The tar pits were way more impressive than I remembered. I hadn't been since I was a kid and honestly thought that it was just one little re-creation of a pit. But there is real tar bubbling up in multiple places. It's really amazing to watch to the little bubbles expand until they pop and then slowly settle back in to the pool.
The museum was also pretty incredible. I wish we had something like this up in the Bay Area. but they are sadly lacking in dinosaurs. We both learned a lot, and I will say, it's really fun to take him to a place like this on his own so he doesn't have to feel rushed by the rest of the group. Bug likes to take it all in, and I was mostly able to let him (we did eventually run out of time when they closed the museum.)
So many saber tooth cat skulls have been found in the area--the display is impressive.
It was a great afternoon with my Bug.
And then A. made his day by playing the Star Wars X-Wing game with him. I didn't play, so don't know exactly what it's all about, but Bug loved it and couldn't stop talking about how great the game is and how maybe he could make the little pieces (it had a LOT of pieces.)
And, of course, getting to meet baby B was a huge part of the trip. He is such a sweet little guy and Bug was so great with him--
I loved getting to watch him snuggle B and give him a bottle. I don't think he's held a baby since Peanut was a baby.
As much as I love a good adventure, I am not a particularly spontaneous person, so the fact that we ended up at Disneyland 9 hours after we decided to go is kind of a big deal.
On our way down to San Diego, we stopped in LA for a night with my high school friend and her husband, who happens to work for Disney. When we were talking about plans for Saturday morning, his free passes and Daddy-o's desire to see Pirate's of the Caribbean before they make changes to it this spring, pushed Disneyland into the top contender spot. Everything just fell into place and a few hours later, we were waking the kids up and heading to The Happiest Place on Earth!
And it was a pretty happy day. Peanut, being the Peanut that he is, was NOT happy to be woken up at 6 a.m. after a late bedtime the night before. When we told him where we were going, he actually started crying and said he didn't want to go at all. We ran through all the fun things we would get to do and when we mentioned Goofy, he finally decided that maybe Disneyland wasn't going to be pure torture.
Then, we were left with the challenge to make sure he actually got to meet Goofy. Luckily, he was easy to find in Toon Town, which made Peanut's day.
And Goofy was so fun with him. Peanut had already bought a Goofy hat before we found him, so they were twins. :)
But first up, we went to Pirates of the Caribbean to make sure we got in the main reason we were there. Peanut had a small panic attack as we first stepped in the building and it looked pretty dark, but I scooped him up and we talked him down and he ended up enjoying the ride.
He was even willing to do another one right after--Jungle Cruise wasn't quite so scary since it was all outdoors where it was nice and light.
And we assured him that the animals were not real and would not be attacking us.
After that, we split up for a bit. While everyone else went on Star Tours and Space Mountain, Peanut and I headed into Fantasy Land (which he enjoyed more than this picture looks like, haha.) We toured Sleeping Beauty's castle,
rode Casey Jr.'s train
and Alice in Wonderland. (We did not ride the teacups because I can't handle spinning in circles, but he seemed okay with just getting a picture in one.)
He even got to meet Captain Hook--and once again, I was reminded that despite his fears of the unknown, he has come a long way from a few years ago when we dragged him around Disneyworld and he was terrified of all the characters as well as the rides.
And then we met back up with everyone
for more rides,
(This kid got to ride the Matterhorn 3 times thanks to using Peanut's fast pass, and then the ride operator pulling our car to the side for a couple minutes and letting us go a second time to make up for the delay.)
meeting more characters,
exploring Toon Town,
and Tom Sawyer's Island.
And of course we had to eat our way through the park-- churros, pretzels, popcorn, and Dole Whips. It felt like a really full day, and it was only 3 p.m! We still had San Diego waiting for us.
I am finally on the last day of our vacation! And I have to start with this story: We decided we wanted to surprise the kids with a day at an amusement park this trip, so we debated about Disneyland, Sea World or Legoland. We finally decided (with the incentive of one free admission thanks to our Disney-employee friend) to go for the big one and take the kids to The Happiest Place on Earth. Daddy-o was so excited to see their reactions when we told them that morning, so we got out the camera to video it and he gets them all set up and then tells them, "Guess what, guys? We're going to Disneyland today!" Bean instantly gets this almost forced look of excitement and Bugaboo looks horrified and yells, "My wanted to go to Sea World!" We have no idea where that came from since he really had no idea what either place was--we'd only mentioned the animals at Sea World a couple times and he saw a big sign at the airport, but apparently that was his dream.
Despite it not being Sea World, they both had a great time that day.
Bugaboo wasn't too sure about his first ride, Peter Pan's Flight, but he loved Dumbo (that's his favorite movie) and luckily he even got the yellow Dumbo. We weren't so lucky later on the tea cups and he threw a fit when he had to ride in a pink one.
Smiles like that make it worth the hundreds of dollars it costs to take a family to Disneyland these days.
Daddy-o's roommate, Will, and his family decided to join us for the day. It took the kids awhile to warm up to each other, but by the afternoon, they were all having a lot of fun which helped with the long wait in the lines.
I think that their favorite time was in Toon Town:
Bean LOVED the rollercoaster. I think she's a little thrill-seeker.
Hanging out in Mickey's house with Will's oldest daughter.
Bugaboo takes firetrucks and driving very seriously.
Catching a ride on the fire truck.
And what's better than ice cream for dinner. The kids actually ate a real dinner too, but I decided that I really didn't need both and the ice cream sundae won.
The kids loved the parade. Bugaboo got down and started to dance at one point. It's nice that they do these a couple times a day so you can see all the characters at once instead of waiting in line to see them at their various homes.
Watching the parade:
I hadn't ridden the tea cups in forever since I tend to get a little motion sick, but the two dads wanted to see how fast they could get their teacups to go, so I ended up taking 3 of the kids with me--luckily, they weren't too good at spinning it so I ended up being okay. The guys weren't feeling so good after their spin.
Daddy-o with the two little boys on small world--I just thought they all look cute--Daddy-o is so big compared to these little guys.
I can't beleive we made it until 10 p.m. The kids really wanted to ride the new Nemo ride, which had a really long line all day, so we waited until pretty late and then still had a 40 min. wait. About halfway into it, the kids all started to lose it, but we pulled out a bunch of snacks and managed to keep them happy until we got on the submarines and it was worth it--that ride was well done and they really liked it. And then we got to see the fireworks as we were getting ready to leave, so it was perfect timing.
And then our trip was over. It was strange driving home from Disneyland and realizing that we weren't just going to our home in SD, but getting ready to fly back across the country the next day. After a week of playing with friends and in old favorite spots, we felt like we'd never left. And honestly, I could have done without the trip home. The kids didn't do quite as well as on the way out there. But we made it home safe and sound and got to enjoy sleeping in for a few mornings while we all adjusted to the time change.
