ranandanntaylor: Our Disney Trip: Days 1, 2, & 3

We pulled off a serious Surprise for our kids this past week... even I am surprised it all worked out! (Im not very good at surprises!)

In March I started planning a Trip for our family to go to Disneyland, but I didnt want the kids to know because I would never hear the end of it! So I did my best to tell very few people and most of the planning on my own. At the time I kept thinking I had such.a.long.time.to.wait- but it all came so fast. I still can't believe its come and gone.

I did throw out several hints along the way... like starting a "Disneyland" jar for the kids to start saving money to go. Although this jar was pretty helpful in getting chores done and talking them out of wanting toys/eating out/ect., it is still sitting on our countertop! (I need to take that in to the bank soon!)

There was also several times I almost gave it away- but had to quickly lie to cover up whatever the kids had heard! Mack asked several times why people were asking if he was excited to go to Disneyland, my response: "Well, aren't you excited to go to Disneyland once you fill up the Disney jar?" It worked like a charm.

The Man was all for it from the beginning, of course he was! He didn't have to do anything but show up and drive! I did everything else.

(Because I took a ton of pictures and they take forever to upload Im breaking this trip up into several posts- otherwise it would be a.very.long.post!)

As soon as he got home from work Friday afternoon we loaded up and headed for Utah to stay with my Aunt. We told the kids we were going to Las Vegas for a vacation. They were THRILLED! They also had no idea what Las Vegas was!! I thought it was funny that they told their teachers they were going to Vegas for a week!! I'm sure their teachers thought we were crazy parents- or stupid!

We stopped for McDonalds on our way out of town and I took this picture, it cracks me up because they had no idea at this time where we were going! I asked them and they all said "LAS VEGAS!!"

We arrived in Lehi about 9pm and were able to hangout with my Aunt Leeann for the night, the kids loved staying at her house and we all stayed up way to late!

Saturday morning we woke up early and met up with my Brothers family for a few hours before the drive to Vegas. I was so excited to see my nephew Tommy for a little bit and Clint and Lauren's new apartment, the kids were loving being with them and had a blast playing in the park across from their home. The weather was amazing- we left here while the sun was shining! Then we ended up going to Kneaders for brunch and stuffed ourselves before leaving to Sin City around 11AM.

The drive was pretty quick, the kids watched movies and slept- and so did I. We arrived in Vegas about 5pm and it was 78 degrees! Vegas was pretty crazy since it was a Saturday night. On the drive into the city we did get to watch a pretty cool Blue Angels show- that might have been my favorite part. Once we arrived at the hotel I would have been fine to lock ourselves in the room for the night, but the kids were anxious to get out and do something. We stayed at the Excalabur and the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever to stay in a big castle. We let them play in the Fun Dungeon Arcade for a while and won a few prizes so they were happy. We spent way to much money on food and arcade games- it was a little sickening! I'm not a huge Vegas fan and couldn't get out of there fast enough! We ended up going to bed pretty early and leaving about 7am Sunday morning!

While in our room the kids spent most of the time watching out our window- we had a great view of the pools and city from 24 floors up, but never actually had time to go swimming or walk around. We did however drive down the strip- that was all I needed to realize this town is not a place I want to be!

Just before we were ready to go I had Randall take the kids down to the Casino to get some Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast, while they were gone I set up some gifts for the kids to open and tell them about where we were "really" going!

When they got back the kids were surprised to see three gifts lined up on the window sill.

Mack read a letter that said, "Mack, Carmen, and Leighton, since you have been such great kids You get to spend the rest of your vacation in DISNEYLAND!... All aboard!"

After he read it they were all completely silent.

Then Mack says, "Wait... Really?"

The girls immediatly opened their gifts and didn't really have much of a response, I think they had no idea what any of it meant! Mack was more excited than any of them. He kept jumping up and down and asking me if it was for real!

In their gift bags were Disney shirts, disney water bottles, the girls got minnie necklaces, and each of them got disney tablets for the Characters to sign.

I filmed it all- but it somehow got deleted.

They couldn't wait much longer to be on the road towards Disneyland so we loaded up right away!

We drove the rest of the way to California that morning. Traffic was TERRIBLE! We sat on the interstate at a complete stand still for over a hour- I slept. Mack asked a million questions about our trip and couldn't seem to wrap his head around what was happening! We watched Malificent and Frozen over and over. The drive was pretty good except Randall was not a very happy camper!! He was pretty ornery by the time we arrived at our hotel. He doesn't handle crowded places well- especially stupid drivers!

The weather was beautiful. The kids couldn't get over the "palm-palm trees!" Leighton tried to point out every single one she saw, it got old real fast!! I couldn't get over how brown everything was!

Then for the next surprise,

my Sister-in-law and her family met us at the condos, (They own a timeshare and were able to get us the room where we stayed) we ended up pulling into the condo at the exact same time! She has kids that are all the same ages as mine and they all get along so well, they were so happy to see each other.

The condo's were amazing. They had 2 separate rooms, 2 full bathrooms, beds for everyone, and a main living/kitchen space. We also had groceries ordered and delivered to our room as we arrived so we wouldn't have to buy food for the week- BEST IDEA EVER! Our rooms also had a washing machine and dryer so I was able to do our laundry while we were there. It was such a nice place and we were so excited to get to stay there for the entire week. And it was walking distance to Disneyland!

Once we got our bags unloaded and car parked we walked across the street to have dinner at The CheeseCake Factory for my Sister-in-laws birthday dinner. We sat and talked and ate for a while, then my parents also met us there. (Another Surprise!) They flew into California earlier that day and met us at the hotel. We didn't tell our kids they were coming so they were so excited and a little shocked when they walked in the restaurant.

It was a day full of LOTS of surprises!

After dinner we went back to the Condo and sat in the roof top hot tubs. We had a beautiful view of the parks and fireworks and sat outside talking for a long time.

We were all pretty excited for the next few days to come! Don't let their faces fool you!