OuR FaNtaStiCaL CAli TRiP!!

We have the most wonderful tradition of going to Disneyland for all of our kids' 5th birthdays and we've all been eagerly anticipating McKade's 5th birthday celebration! I have to say that this is one of my most favorite traditions ever!! Have I mentioned how much I LOVE California? It is definitely my happy place! This tradition means that we have a definite planned trip there every 2 years or so. Knowing that a trip will be in store in the near future keeps me going through the super hot summers and freezing cold winters in this blasted home of ours. To say that the promise of this trip has been huge to me this year is an understatement. It kept me looking forward to something when there wasn't much of that in the last 7 months. I'm so glad that we already had this planned before Gabriel died. Of course, we had this all planned around Gabriel being with us, so that was bittersweet. We miss him being part of all of our lives everyday and especially in the big significant family times.

We did have a wonderful time! We ended up getting a steal of a deal on a condo for a week so we decided that we'd shoot for the Southern California pass, which we also found a great deal on. We are crazy but somehow squeezed in three days at Disneyland, a day at both Sea World and Universal Studios, and a day whale watching and hanging at the beach. We slept so little this trip but had so much fun!! Our kids are super troopers and went full throttle with us the whole time, with suprisingly little grumpiness. It was such a great but busy and exhausting trip!!

So, yeah, I'm known for taking a bajillion and thirty-seven pictures, hence making the blogging process insane. I split the whole trip up into a post per day, so 8 in all. There's a ton, A TON, of pictures, but hey, isn't that what everyone wants to see anyway? Here's our awesome California trip!!!