California Trip- Day 1

We had a fabulous time in California!  We were there for 8 days, May 4-11th,  and enjoyed every minute of it.  We started out by staying at Chris' the night before we flew out of SLC.  I found killer deals on our flights, but it required flying out at 6 am.  So we were very grateful to Chris for his hospitality and dropping us off at the airport, and it was fun to see his new place and Mya (his 4-legged baby).  We got very little sleep, but we were all excited to head out.

This was my kids first experience flying, which made it all the more exciting for all of us.

Anticipating take off...

And the fabulous Long Beach Airport that we flew into.  Not at all what I was expecting.  When we got out of the plane we were walking outside the rest of the way out, a much different feel to this smaller airport than SLC for sure!  :)

Our sweet rental for the week.  2011 Mitsubishi Endeavor.   And thank heavens she had power.  California is not an easy place to navigate and they drive like the Indy 500.  We sure hated when it came time to turn her back.

Now, hindsight is always 20/20, but we knew we weren't going to be able to check into our condo until 4:00 pm.  Before we left, though, I had called and asked if there were any possibility of us being able to check in earlier and they told us to check in with them after we made it into Anaheim.  Murphy's Law never disappoints, and of course we weren't able to check in any earlier. 

So we started out looking around a little bit and getting groceries and other necessities to take back to the condo with us.  We also had to go pick up our City Passes from some unknown place at Disneyland that we had a HECK of a time locating.  We kept turning down the wrong streets, the wrong parking lots, etc.  Then when Shaun went trekking in to get the passes I sat out with the kids in this 15 minute parking lot.  15 minutes was up so I decided I'd better drive around the block and then restart my 15 minutes.  Yeah, I ended up lost and crying because I couldn't find my way back.  Lo and behold, obviously we did, but it wasn't without great frustration/anxiety. 

It was a long tiring day by the time it was all said and done so all we ended up doing that night was just taking the kids down to the outdoor pool/ hot tub. (What kid doesn't love water?!)