Road Trip To California - Part 1

For the end of March we took a 2 week road trip to California.  Last time we road tripped to California we went in a motor home, towing our car, and drove through the night.  Which was okay for the girls who were almost 3 and almost 5. But our dog did not like the motor home and was freaking out, which made it quite stressful till we finally put her in the car we were towing.

This time we drove in our Mazda 5.  We did a 9 hour drive to Redding, and stayed in a hotel overnight, and then did another 9 hour drive to Los Angeles.  Culver City to be exact, and stayed with my brother and his family for a week.  Then we drove about 6 hours to Monterey and stayed with our friend from college and her family for four nights, and did a 14 hour drive from Monterey back to Everett.

The trip was surprisingly smooth.  I want to say that mobile devices are awesome for road trips.  We had music, movies, tv shows, books on tape, games, and regular books all available and it made the trip pretty reasonable.

In Los Angeles we stayed with my brother which was so fun.  The kids had fun playing with their cousins.  The only bad part, was our timing, as they had just moved a few days before we arrived so their house was full of boxes, and I am sure it was a bit stressful for them.

We did Disneyland for a day (no California Adventure), the Aquarium of the Pacific, visited the beaches quite a bit, and just hung out and let the cousins play.  My nephews are the cutest boys ever.

Disneyland was of course wonderful.  I am kind of regretting not doing more than one day, but on the other hand it was crowded and pretty exhausting.  Allie just met the height requirement, which was great, because it meant we could all go on Splash Mountain and Space Mountain.  I was worried about the kids being scared, but they loved it.  They are kind of crazy.

We spent some time going on rides with the cousins, and we even met up with Lisa and her family (who we were staying with in Monterey), who also happened to be at Disneyland the same day as us.

The Aquarium of the Pacific was cool.  Their deep water exhibit was pretty awesome.  There are some weird creatures way down deep.  They also had some birds to feed, and rays to pet, and even had a penguin named Floyd. :)  

The beaches were fun, and probably the most relaxing, as the kids can spend hours digging in the sand and you don't have to deal with crowds.

We visited muscle beach in Santa Monica where Selena impressed the guys with her rope climbing skills.