Next time I say, “I want to go to Disneyland for my birthday”; will somebody please slap me upside the head? Why on earth didn’t I say, “I want to go to the spa for my birthday”? All joking aside, we just returned home from a seven-day adventure down in Southern California which included taking our three small kids to the so-called, “Happiest Place on Earth”. Three hotels and over 600 miles later, we returned home last night to our own beds, our own food, and our own six-dozen piles of dirty laundry. Once again I survived to tell the tale of a road very traveled (a.k.a. Interstate 5)….

Learning from our way-too-early-morning departure during the Christmas season, we felt it best to leave after breakfast for this particular trip to Southern California. Our mission was to head to Encino for cousin Suzanne’s wedding weekend followed by three days at Disneyland for my birthday. It turns out that leaving too early may be hard on us, but the problem with leaving later is that the children are more awake. I think we stopped somewhere in the neighborhood of five to seven times before reaching our first hotel in Encino, CA. Have you driven on I5? It’s tricky with long stretches of road between bathrooms. It was particularly awesome when we would find a bathroom sit the girls down on a toilet and then…nothing. So needless to say my husband and I were not the most rested when we arrived at the rehearsal dinner. I ran into a cousin in the elevator as we arrived. He had on his Bermudas and a cocktail in his hand while I looked like I had just arrived back from war. Luckily that night we did have a babysitter who was set up by our cousin, Stacy, to watch the children at the hotel. We left her with some coloring books and markers and two wound up preschoolers and a baby. To my surprise they were fast asleep when we returned back to our room and the hotel management had not been called about any disturbances.

What I learned about myself on this trip is that I do have a good amount of anxiety when it comes to travelling with children. My kids aren’t the easiest to manage (mainly my precious Georgia) and they get more and more squirrelly when nap schedules are disrupted. We tried to put them down for naps and rest, but the excitement of being in a hotel room was too much even for the baby. Saturday was a challenging day for us. In the afternoon, I had headed back up to the room to try and get the baby and myself a nap when Brent arrived back at the room with the kids. He had a worried look on his face and he said to me, “there was an incident”. Turns out someone had found Georgia poolside stripping down to her naked body about to go for a swim. Luckily, and I mean “Thank you God!”, she was found before she tried to go for a swim. I tried to not let the thoughts of what could have happened overwhelm me or beat up my husband for letting her get out of his sight. Let’s just say she definitely wore her monkey backpack for most of the rest of our trip. Once again we were lucky to have a babysitter lined up for dinner that night so my husband and I had a bit of a reprieve from a hard day without our sugar loaded toddlers who had been saddling up to the snacks in the hospitality suite all afternoon. That dinner turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip after my sister-in-law did what most of us had been wishing we could do that day; drank two large glasses of Jagermeister.

Sunday we switched to the luxurious Langham hotel in Pasadena, home of Suzanne and Zack’s wedding. We left the children one last time with a sitter, who later we found out ordered $60 in room service and charged $30 in calls to our bill. Thankfully, the wedding was amazing. I enjoyed every minute of the dinner, the dancing, and the exceptional time with my husband and his wonderful family. I would say additional expenses for said good time were worth it.

On Monday we headed to Disneyland. When compared to our Christmas trip to Disneyland last year, we were so much happier going when there were less people. Our hotel was directly across the street from the main entrance and we had two connecting rooms (which proved to be a little annoying because Georgia liked to lock herself in on the other side and pretend like she didn’t know how to unlock the door she had just locked). But the extra space was awesome. Once we arrived inside of the park we were able to ride many rides without much of a wait. The kids loved it. We met Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Pluto, and many (I mean many) princesses. One of the highlights for the girls, which ended up being a challenging lunch for us, was lunch with the princesses at Ariel’s Grotto. But should you go there forget about having children who eat lunch and be prepared to pay for it. Our girls were so excited they could hardly stand up. They got to meet Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Aurora, and of course Ariel (who the next day my observant husband noticed looked a lot like Rapunzel).

Our trip had some big highs and some low lows but all in all, I must say that I am happy today. I am happy that we took the initiative to try. We didn’t parent perfectly, we didn’t spouse perfectly, but we survived and in our survival we have created some memories that we will always cherish. The look on my daughter’s faces when they met some of the characters was priceless. I also had the opportunity to try out California Adventure with my husband while my mom watched the kids. I must say I didn’t love that park at first but on second go I rode California Screamin’, Soaring Over California, and the Tower of Terror (which was by far the best ride I have ever been on). It was an amazing birthday and for the first time in a long time I didn’t even think about turning a year older or wrinkle creams. I had a birthday that will happily ever after remain in my mind as an incredible adventure with my beautiful family. Just don’t ask me to tell you about the lunch at Harris’ Ranch on our drive back up. I know now why drive-thru’s exist.