The end of July found us packing up the family for a reunion with my side of the family in Southern California. No, none of my family lives in California but my parent's had a time share thingy they had swapped for a place in Escondido -- The Lawrence Welk Resort. It was 8 days of Family Fun. Not the most relaxing vacation (as you will see)...we were almost non-stop on the go. But it sure was fun to visit, site-see and let the cousins play. This one is long. Sorry.
THE RESORT
Colby & Kenny swimming in one of the hotel pools.
My dad, a.k.a. "Pops" swimming with Camille & Sadie.
He sure can be cute with those little kids.
All the grandkids (except baby Spencer) dipping their feet in the hot tub outside our rooms
MORMON BATTALION MUSEUM
Sunday we went to Old Town San Diego to the Mormon Battalion Museum.
If you haven't been to see this place in the last year or two you NEED to go.
They totally rebuilt it and it has changed dramatically.
No matter what your denomination is, this is a stop worth making.
The sites, activities, and special effects were truly awesome!
We could barely drag the kids away. And did I mention it was all free!!!
As part of the "tour" -- you HAVE to do the tour --
Renae got to be a Wash Woman and Mason a soldier.
Outside on the patio there was panning for gold, brick making,
washing laundry on a scrub board & climbing a tower to look out over San Diego.
They even took the family's picture w/ an old fashioned background
& printed it out -- for FREE! We loved it!
THE BEACH
Next up was a beach day. We went to Oceanside.
My brother Kenny is a master sand castle builder.
He's like one of the kids.
The kids all loved the water & sand. Especially Sadie.
FAMILY PICTURES by Ismael (brother-in-law)
Family Pictures: Everyone HATES doing them, but you are always glad to have them.
The whole family
The Grandkids
My own "little" family
DISNEYLAND
What's a trip to Southern California without a trip to Disneyland?!?
But this trip was unique for a few reasons:
1)We earned vouchers through Disney's "Give A Day. Get a Disney Day." program
for 1 free ticket for each of us to Disneyland. So that was awesome!
2) My mom watched Sadie while we & the 3 big kids went for an extra day.
So we had a Disney day where we could all ride ALL the rides (no height limits!)
and no kiddy rides. Colby wasn't thrilled at first but he was brave & a good sport.
3) I've never been to Disneyland with all my family.
That had it's ups & downs. So much fun! But hard to keep 20 people together!!
But thanks to FastPass & RiderSwap we managed.
The Classic Pose
The Procession.
We made our own parade as we walked from one attraction to the next.
There were a few tears.
But Disneyland can't ALWAYS be the happiest place on earth, right?
LEGOLAND
I would have to say that Legoland had some of the coolest things I'd ever seen!
The Minitown USA (or whatever it's called) was truly amazing.
For Lego fans like my kids & hubby it was an awe-inspiring site to behold.
We gave Mason the camera & he took hundreds of pictures.
Here are a couple.
Las Vegas hotel the Luxor
Mt. Rushmore -- all out of Legos
So it was the coolest thing we'd ever seen.
But the RIDES were the lamest thing we'd ever seen.
Truly disappointing and a waste of money for the rides end of it.
Sad. It is really geared toward 3-6 yr olds. Not much for the big kids.
The kids had fun. And we are glad we did it once.
It was a great trip. Thanks Grannie & Pops for making it all possible!
I don't think we'll be doing many California trips anymore. Sad.
But it is SOOOOOOOOO far from Idaho.
The drive just about killed us.
3 comments:
Looks like a super fun trip! Marde arranged a southern California trip for everyone like 4 or 5 years ago, and we had a blast. I kind of wish we would have done legoland and disneyland, but we didn't. We did Sea World and the zoo.
Just catching up on your blog and your fun filled crazy summer! Looks like you guys had a blast and the kids are growing like weeds! We miss your cute family! Hope you are having a fun time in the big ID!!
Hey I want the picture of the kids in the jacuzzi. It was a lot of fun. I can't believe that my family only went to Bear Lake once and usually we are the Bear Lake bums.
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