Disneyland Vacation - Days Six, Seven & Eight

OK...let's wrap up this marathon on pictures and memories in one last post.

Friday morning found us sleeping in...blessedly sleeping in. Sarah found her way to our bed and went back to sleep. I'm sure it was much more comfortable than the blanket on the floor she was sharing with Joseph.


And since Joseph stole her blanket, what was the reason to stay? But he does look like he's enjoying it.


The girls had a bed to themselves. Rebekah seems to have abandoned her pillow in favor of Leah's rear. Can you see how tired everyone was? They are all still in their yellow shirts and Rebekah still has her flower barrettes in her hair!


Yeah, Nathan wanted to know who the crazy person flashing pictures all over the room was. I am shamelessly guilty.


We took advantage of one last breakfast at the hotel. It felt strange to eat with the kids without their yellow shirts on. Were we a "normal" family again?

We stopped at Downtown Disney on our way out of the area. Daniel still had some money to spend and we found a Lego store to take care of business. The kids were very impressed with the Lego sculptures!




I was grateful for this play table to keep the kids busy while Daniel (guided by his value-conscious mother) shopped the store. Too bad Sarah can't actually see what she's building.



It was here that I learned we'd run out of money. Yikes! They rejected my debit card...how embarrassing. I don't have overdraft on the card on purpose, but I didn't expect it to hit at such a moment (and on my birthday, no less). That prompted a trip to the bank to transfer a little more money over to get us home.

After a trip to our bank, we headed for the beach before starting our journey back to Idaho.

We were the only group on the beach that was crazy enough to go into the water on the last day of September. And Daniel was the only one in our group crazy enough to get completely wet. (But if it was going to be anyone, it was going to be him.)



If Daniel is one to play in the water, Nathan is one to play in the sand. He really got involved with his digging and building here.


Joseph is 100% Idaho boy. Maybe that explains why he doesn't seem to know what to do with all this sand and water. ;)


Rebekah's emotions got the better of her when I wanted to take some pictures before helping her into a bathing suit. But she couldn't wait to get wet. Well, once she was wet, I didn't see any reason to get the bathing suit out. So she threw a tantrum and spent the rest of the time at the beach like this.


Sarah is also 100% Idaho. She got her feet/legs wet a time or two, but the resorted to repeating, "No beach." I think it was one of her first two-word combos!


I tried to create a unique memory photo in the sand while I waited for everyone to get done playing. It's kind of hard to keep your balance in the sand while walking barefoot. So here you go: 20H! What a year it was.


So we finally got done playing at the beach (we were at Huntington Beach) and used another 30 minutes changing into dry clothes and vainly trying to shake sand from wet ones. We climbed into the van and wasted more time trying to find a Verizon store to get some help with my phone. When that didn't work, we decided to head for the interstate and get the heck out of California!

We left the westest (I made up that word) point on the map and started for home at 3 PM MDT. Yeah...that was not a good time to start a long trip. Luckily, we had that map to look at! We drove as far as we could stand (and then a little farther) and ended up in Santa Clara, UT at 11:20 PM. We stayed with my step-dad's parents and were so grateful for their hospitality.

The next morning, we had a very generous breakfast and finally got going again at 10 AM. We found General Conference on the radio and listened as we drove north. Just as the first session ended, we got to Beaver and made an important stop at the cheese factory there for some delicious ice cream cones, then stopped at the grocery store for some lunch. We drove more, while listening to conference and finished it just as we got to my mom's house (4 PM).

Chad went to the Priesthood session by himself and treated me to a belated birthday cake after the meeting. As far as birthdays go, this one ranked near the bottom. Of course, I haven't spent very many birthdays driving for endless hours with 6 tired children (thank goodness). But the days before it were awesome! Besides, it's only "38". That's not a major milestone. ;)

We spent the night with Grandma and got on the road at 10 AM again...more Conference in the car. We arrived home about 1 PM which gave us just enough time to unload the car and prepare for the final session of Conference. We were so glad to be home!

Over a month later, Joseph is still bringing up Disneyland in many of his comments.

Here is the map we used on our trip. Black cars are the trip down and red cars are the trip back. I think we will definitely use this idea again!