This Is Us

On Saturday before we left we went to Huntington Beach. It was so cloudy and cold that Melissa decided not to get in so she could help keep the kids warm when they needed her to. Nice excuse huh?! LOL! The kids had so much fun... even Zain and Grandpa. Nicolas and Brichette went out a little further and gathered lots of shells. Which Zain even tasted, Yuck! Grandpa found some sea weed, and Zain loved the feel of it. After they were done playing, we stopped into a gift shop/food walk-up and bought some souvenirs and ate lunch. The food was very good!

On Friday we went to Universal Studios. Even though it's that far miles wise from Anaheim, it took us a good 3 hours to get there because of the traffic. It was chilly, but we still had lots of fun. We took the tour, and experienced the cool King Kong 360 degrees 3-D. It's on the tour, and is VERY cool! We watched the 4-D Shrek movie, which is also very cool, and went on the Mummy ride. We love that ride, it's such a rush. This year Brichette was tall enough to go on it... sadly Xander wasn't (which really disappointed him). We love the waiting room. Then those that wait with the kids, don't have to wait in line! It was really nice because you could actually get your picture taken with the characters (unlike a certain somewhere we went for three days and only got a picture with a couple of the characters). You didn't have to wait for them to get to their "spot" or have the line close right in front of you because it's time for them to take a break....

Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday we went to Disneyland. On Tuesday they had the Halloween celebration. They would close the park early (6:00 PM) and then you could come back in and participate in their Halloween celebration... for an extra $60.00 per person. Yeah... We didn't do that. That's ridiculous. Everywhere else it's included in your admission... you don't have to buy another ticket and come back in. Really dumb. So we decided that we didn't want to do the early morning on Tuesday and have to leave at 6:00 so we did it on Thursday so we could stay late also, and get a lot of time in one day. Thursday we got there about 7:00 (early entrance is from 7-8 AM). We were able to get in before they opened at 8:00 AM, so we could get autographs from a lot more characters and rode rides, and get some fast passes before the rush of people came. We got there before almost everyone and thought... oh great, we get to park on the lower levels of the parking structure... NO, ...

Tuesday we went to San Diego Zoo. It is a long drive, but doesn't seem that long because it's all Freeway, and not a lot of traffic. We got there in the early afternoon (about 9 or 10) and stayed till they closed. The kids had a lot of fun... they just love animals. We walked most of the way, but didn't feel up to walking back at close. So we rode the "sky ride" back to the entrance. They will only allow 4 people on a car, which includes babies. Yeah they wouldn't let Nicolas, Melissa, Brichette, Xander, and Zain all ride in one. So Melissa took the three kids and Nicolas rode with his parents and the stroller. Seems a little silly, but whatever.

We got into California late Saturday night. Got to our Hotel and ready to get into our beds, but when we try to check in they gave our rooms away that morning. They had us go to two different rooms next to each other, but not with a connecting door, for that night and will move us to two rooms tomorrow with a door that connects. They weren't even going to give us anything for them screwing up... giving our rooms away to those people because they paid them too, is what we think. Anyway we got into our rooms, settled down and went to sleep. Here are a couple pictures of the kids playing in the Hotel room: Sunday we packed all our stuff up again, left our luggage at the front desk then headed off to Sea World. It was so fun. They had little booths set up for the kids to Trick-Or-Treat at, and it was FREE (unlike Disneyland... they wanted an extra $50.00 per person for their Halloween at Disneyland), they had inflatable sea creatures in costumes. The kids could have worn their costumes...

We left Las Vegas around Noon, and headed to California. We made a stop, before going straight to our hotel. We stopped at Calico Ghost Town. They were having their Calico days, so they had lots of activities that they don't normally have. There was an egg tossing contest. Make your own candles. Crafts in most of the stores, for the kids to make. Lots of other things. We were there for a couple hours and had lots of fun.

On our way to Disneyland we stopped in Las Vegas. We were going to stay with our friends, but their daughter was sick and we didn't want to risk getting sick. So we ended up staying with Dieter and Colleen in their condo like hotel room. In the morning we went to the M&M and Coke Factory. Xander didn't want to be in the picture. Not sure why. This is made out of M&M's. One cool dude! M&M Nascar We weren't sure what he would want for his souvenir so we showed him a couple things. Once we handed this to him he wouldn't stop loving it or let it go. Dieter and Colleen standing in the glass Coke bottle. Batman was outside the Coke Factory. Xander was so excited to get his picture taken. Then there was Iron Man. He was REALLY excited. We told you he liked it. He wouldn't let go.