California 2014

So here's the story of our family trip to California in November 2014. As I mentioned, Winter Storm Knife caused us to almost not make it on this trip, we ended up having to reschedule our flight for two days later than planned because we literally could not get to the airport from our house. Thankfully Southwest is really good about moving flights around when bad weather is involved, so we were scheduled to fly out Saturday morning at 8:30.
We get all settled on our plane, ready to go, calm as can be- and then the plane won't start. The pilot tells us the engines are too cold, so we're going to wait for maintenance to bring heaters to get them going. Almost half an hour goes by, Evie asks 17 times when we're going to leave, and then they tell us it's going to be another hour before maintenance can come and they're taking us off the plane. AND, we had a really short layover in Chicago so this means we're going to miss our connecting flight to LA. So, Southwest gives us vouchers (yay!) and rebooks our flights again- fly to Baltimore, 4 hour layover (boo!), then fly to Phoenix (double boo!), THEN fly to LA. Instead of arriving at 1:20 in the afternoon, we don't get in until like 9. Or something like that, we were so tired I don't even remember. Nothing like taking what was supposed to be 7 hours of travel and turning it into 17 HOURS.

In case anyone is wondering how we kept Evie relatively happy for an entire day of travel- she played games and watched movies on the Kindle, played with her magic clip dolls, was really into these foam puzzle and peg board things I got on Amazon, and colored in a Frozen magic ink coloring book. I brought other things too, but those are the things that held her interest the longest. She did SO great considering the horribly long day- halfway through the flight to Phoenix she was tired and cranky and done, so she cried for about five minutes while I rocked her, then fell asleep for two hours. After that she was back to her happy self for the rest of the trip. 

So, our plan was to do Disneyland Sunday- yay!!! We had a fun time, but I think it would have been a lot more fun if we hadn't just had the travel day from hell (oh yea, and the snow storm from hell the entire week before that). We were all tired, and it was hard on Evie especially because she hadn't gotten enough sleep. I had made her an appointment at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique to get her hair and makeup done like a princess, we talked about it for weeks and she seemed SO excited- and then they started and she wanted none of it. I felt horrible, she was nervous and uncomfortable and fighting back tears and it broke my heart. The girl got only partway through when we had to stop because Evie just couldn't do it. Oh well- such is life with kids right? ;) She is in love with the Cinderella backpack that came with the package I bought, and they gave us all of the makeup and hair stuff to take home. 

Then we did rides and ate delicious food and Evie slept for 2 and a half hours in the stroller that night- even through the crazy loud Fantasmic laser light show! She LOVED meeting the princesses so much, I think that was her favorite part. We also watched the Beauty and the Beast show twice, she loved that as well. She chose an Elsa Magic Clip doll to add to her collection and a Barbie-sized Anna doll as her souvenirs- so funny that she ended up with two Frozen things when she rarely watches the movie anymore! 

The rest of our trip we spent relaxing- and eating. ;) Grandma treats us well when it comes to meals and she cooked a ton while we were there. We went to the beach two days in a row, Eric and I went to the movies (Mockingjay, woohoo!), Eric and Rudy went to the LA Car Show... it was a fun visit. And thankfully the trip home was uneventful!!

Thank you to Beth and Rudy for letting us stay and being wonderful hosts, and for playing so much with Evie and making her the happiest girl ever with a day at Disney! She misses Wilson the dog already. ;)