California Bound

Finally it's time for our trip to Disneyland!!  Have you ever seen a cuter little traveler walking through the airport?

He was so excited to be in the airport with his luggage.  Mom, Dad, The Jones' and the Ross Family left the prior day via car.  We opted for a much quicker route to Cali.  The thought of driving 10 plus hours with our three kids sounded like hell so when I found a reasonable fare, we booked our tickets.

We couldn't board the plane fast enough.  They were so excited.

I have to zoom in on this kid real quick.

Sam had his first, and certainly not last experience of waiting on the trip.  He wanted to board the plane NOW.  I kept saying, 5 more minutes.

Randy sat with Hank and Max and Sam was my seat buddy.

He had plenty of snacks and a movie to watch.  

He couldn't believe it was already time to land.  I tell you, flying is the way to travel with kids.

We rented this car at the airport and headed out to Laguna Beach.  The warmth, and smell of the ocean was a beautiful welcome to California.  Side note...the 30 minute car ride to the beach proved my point about flying instead of driving.  I wanted to kill my kids!

We stopped at Ruby's Diner before we met up with the rest of my family.  You can tell just how amped my kids were.  We were in need of a huge beach for them to get their energy out.

We arrived at Newport Beach around the same time as everyone else.  Within 5 minutes of getting there, Sam got taken out by a wave.  Poor Sammy-Boy.

Hank kept a safe distance from potential waves.

Max on the other hand was begging to get washed away.

Mission accomplished.

Hank slowly inched out but the water was freezing.

Sam and Grandpa were busy building something in the sand.

Sam couldn't stop talking about our holiday house.  He's been watching a lot of Peppa Pig lately.

My dad finally convinced Sam it was safe to get close to the water again.

While they were bonding, I spied my dream home.

Time to bury Mino!

Of course Hank had to add nips. 

Max quickly realized getting buried wasn't the best idea.  The only showers available were freezing cold.  He endured the frigid shower longer than I could have.

Brett's hand gesture went unnoticed at first but gave us all a chuckle later.

My dad felt like being a photographer and contributed the following candid shots.

Man I love this family of mine.  I knew in that moment, this was going to be the perfect vacation.  There was so much family bonding in the first few hours.  

On our way to the "holiday house" Sam couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.  He snuggled right up to Max the entire way.  We stayed in our timeshare like we have in previous years.  This time every family had their own room which was really nice.  After everyone showered and bathed we were starving and not willing to manage our huge group at a crowded restaurant.  We opted to order a few pizza's for our crew not realizing just how giant the giant pizza was.

This picture doesn't capture the enormity.  The box was the size of the table and we got two of them!  We couldn't stop laughing and stuffing our faces.  We had to carbo load since we had a huge day at Disneyland the next morning.