November 24 - December 5 we took a much needed vacation. We DROVE down to Anaheim and spent 3 days at Disneyland, a day at Universal Studios, a day at the San Deigo Zoo and a day at SeaWorld. It was SO much fun but Erik and I were happy to be home and ready to get back to our routine. The first 3 days of the trip we spent between Disneyland and California Adventure. Aniston LOVED it. She met her two favorite princesses, Ariel and Belle, and rode a ton of rides. Her favorite are the Winnie the Pooh ride, the Toy Story ride and King Triton's Carousel. Thankfully the carousel never filled all the way up so they never made her get off. She would just switch to a different animal and ride it again. I think we rode that thing 15 times each day. Alysha and her boyfriend Alex joined us the third day and stayed until we came home. They took Aniston for a few hours around the park so Erik and I could do the big rides. Our favorite was Indiana Jones....at least until the snake portion of the ride. Erik said he forgot about that part but I could hear him laughing after I screamed. The fourth day, I woke up with the stomach flu. So not fun on vacation but thankfully we'd rented a condo for the week so we had a seperate bedroom and bathroom that I could hide in. Erik, Alysha and Alex took Aniston to Universal Studios that day. She got to meet Dora, Spongebob and the characters from Madagascar and Erik was impressed that you didn't have to wait in line to meet them....unlike the princesses where mommy stood in line for 75 minutes so my little princess could meet her favorites. Wednesday we got up bright and early and drove to San Deigo for two days. Even though we had a condo in Anaheim, we stayed at a hotel in San Deigo one night so we'd be closer to the zoo the next day after doing SeaWorld. The shows at SeaWorld were amazing but we were ready for our room that night. San Deigo Zoo was impressive. My favorite are always the flamingos and we were shocked at how close you could get to all the animals. Aniston LOVES the pandas and Alex got her a really cute panda mask that she wears around the house.
Friday morning we dropped Alysha and Alex off at Disneyland (they flew out of Orange County late afteroon) and we headed to Santa Rosa to spend the night with my grandparents. We made a much needed stop at Costco in Redding as about 20 miles before Redding the portable DVD player gave out and we knew we couldn't make it home without Aniston being entertained in the backseat. Saturday we were supposed to head to Vancouver to spend the night again with more grandparents but with Erik's hip and our losing patience with being in the car, we decided to drive all the way home and made it home at 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning. It was nice to have all day Sunday to rest and get ready for work the next day. And with having a condo, we had a washer/dryer so we came home with clean clothes! Erik videotaped pretty much the entire trip so I didn't snap many pictures and he's made the video into a DVD for Aniston and she watches it almost every night. I now remind myself that that's why we work so hard so that we can play hard too and give Aniston these memories.
