What I did for my summer vaca.... wait a minute!

Here's the pictures from our trip!

We got in Monday with almost no problems...the only problem was my ears.  I think that the pilot started our decent as soon as we crossed over into California cuz it seemed that my head hurt the entire last hour of the flight...and yes I was trying to keep the pressure from building up.  I've been dizzy ever since and will be heading to my doctor tomorrow about this.

After grabbing some lunch we headed directly to American Girl Place.  Darly was in Heaven!!!  You should have seen the look on her face.  The place was more than she could even imagine.  Everything that she's ever wanted was all there on display.  When you asked what she wanted she said the list of what she didn't want was much shorter!  Poor kiddo.  We told her that we would get her something but she had to be able to carry it home (meaning no full sized doll - cuz she had brought two with her on the trip. *)  She ended up picking out the cat, a pair of doll sized** jeans and a souvenir doll sized t-shirt.  AGP has personal shoppers and one asked us if we needed anything.  Darly mentioned that when we purchased one of her accessories that it didn't come with all the parts...so she was wondering if we could get the missing part.  The personal shopper tried really hard to find the missing part, but alas she didn't have it.  So she told us to try calling up the catalog (I will this week) and to come see her when we check out.  She ended up giving Darly a doll sized coat & a doll sized pair of jeans!  WOW!

We finally tore Darly out of there about 3 hours later (note the parking garage was only validated for 2 hours!)  At the recommendation of Joan who lives in CA, we stopped at the fountains.  She said they were like a mini-Bellagio in Vegas, and she was right!  It was a very nice fountain show with music.  And I think that Darly was pleased with the show (she's been begging to go to Vegas to see the fountains - which isn't going to happen for her until either they ban smoking or she's old enough to gamble.)

We then went back to our hotel.  DH had checked in the day before.  He told us that originally they had us in a room on the highway side of the hotel, but he asked if we could get a room on the other side and they switched us with no problems.  YAY!  It's much quieter on the other side, and seeing as we could hear conversations from folks outside in the parking lot (even though we were on the 5th floor) I can imagine how noisy the highway side would have been.  The hotel was great, nice comfortable room & bed and decent free breakfast.  DH & I had belgian waffles every morning.  YUM!

Day two we headed over to Disneyland.  It had rained that morning so the air was a bit chilly, but for most of the day we were comfy in our long sleved t-shirts.  Seeing as it was Darly's second time there we weren't concerned with hitting everything...we just did what we wanted to...although I had to talk Darly into a few rides.  She loves roller coasters, so being tall enough for them this trip was a real treat for her.  She says Space Mountain is her favorite.  (I have to remember that I don't like that one!)  We ended up getting too cold at around 3:30 or so, and headed off to find dinner.  DH had seen that one of the restraunts near our hotel was offering free dessert on Election day...we shouldn't have bothered.  LOL! :p

Day three we went to the Science Discovery Center.  THANKS Lynn for the tip to try my museum membership.  We all got in for free on the museum passport system.  YAY!  I'm so glad that we didn't have to pay cuz while the museum was great, it was crowded with about 4 or 5 school groups there on field trips.  It seemed that every time we went to something a group of kids would push their way up in front of us.  Darly really wanted to stay and wait until the kids left but DH & I talked her into leaving.  and she's so glad that we did...cuz we went to ...

Knotts Berry Farm next.  Darly of course had no idea what they had there so she was very reluctant to go there...but once we got there she was in Heaven!  Knotts was practically empty.  We didn't have to wait for any of the rides and Darly was in roller coaster land.  LOL!  Her favorite was the Jaguar.  She also loved the swing ride (where the swings lift up and go in a circle).  We ended up closing the place.

Thursday was coming home day.  We got all packed and to the airport just fine (only minor traffic on the way) and DH dropped us off at check in so we wouldn't have to carry his bag from the car rental.  I went ahead and got into line and hoped that he would get back before I reached the counter just in case his bag was overweight.  He made it back just fine and his bag wasn't overweight.  whew!

The fun part came after our plane pushed back from the gate.  We got into line and were assigned #3 for take-off.  and then 20 min later we were told that the wind had switched directions, so after the traffic control tower got their ducks in a row we would taxi to the other end of the runway.  Guess what happened by the time we got to the other end of the runway?  YUP!  The wind had switched back!!!  So we had to wait until they cleared the taxi-way and taxi back to the original end of the runway.  So after sitting in the plane for nearly an hour we made it in the air.  I felt sorry for the flight attendants cuz they had to keep telling folks that we couldn't get up (even though the plane wasn't moving) cuz if we were finally able to move we couldn't if someone wasn't in their seat.  The pilot felt so bad for us that he turned off the fasten seatbelt sign when we were only half way up so we could go pee.

We got back to Denver at 3:30, got a very late lunch and then dropped DH off at his car.  Then got the fun of driving in rush hour traffic to MIL's house to pick up our very happy dog Lilly.  She was so very silly.  We finally made it home at 6pm.

I have been dizzy since we landed in CA on Monday.  I'm pretty sure that I messed up my inner ears.  I checked online and found that I probably should have seen my doctor on Friday, but of course I didn't find this out until my doctor was closed.

*DH & I both think that two of these dolls is plenty for her to have, so we won't be getting her anymore of the dolls.
**I am noting doll sized because American Girl also sells child sized clothing, which although I considered getting Darly some, I decided against it because she'll just outgrow it and I didn't think the quality was worth the price.