Once Upon a Time . . .: Playing Ketchup

(Yes I know I spell catch up wrong)

This summer has been crazy busy. The best time to post so we will remember it, but the hardest time to find time.

Our Summer started out with a trip to Disneyland!!! We didn't plan on going on a big vacation this year it was not something we felt we could afford, however, my father in law's band he teaches was headed to Disneyland to preform so with some great help from our in laws we were able to go. The best part of the trip was all the Whitley's were able to get together, and that hasn't happened for a couple years.

Sorry to bore you with the details, but I want to remember them. On Friday we picked Grandma up and headed to the airport. Grandpa and the Rennerts left the day before in the motor home. I was happy that everything went smoothly, except for the poor lady behind me on the plane that Kyra said "Hi" to over a 100 times. :) Once we landed in Long Beach we walked across the street to get our rental car and headed to the hotel. We wanted to stay close to Disneyland at an inexpensive hotel. Tim found a great deal on Alpine Inn. It was an OK place to stay, but I don't think I would stay there again, you had to pay for ice and the air conditioning was SO loud. Once we were checked in Grandma took us to Coco's Bakery for lunch. Yum, we love Coco's Bakery. The rest of Friday was spent trying to get Kyra to take a nap (trying to being the key word), getting Grandma to the RV park they were staying at, helping Julie get to her rental car, getting groceries, and grabbing dinner.

Saturday - This was a BIG Disneyland day. Tim had a program that helped him create a plan to do Disneyland without long waits. It was amazing. I am a stress-er and hate crowds, so Disneyland + kids = A Stressed Out Ornery Mom, however, I had THE best time I have ever had at Disneyland this time. We got there about 20 minutes before the gates off and we headed off to find the rides that had been mapped out for the time. We rode about 5 or 6 rides before we headed over to listen to Dan's band play.

After we were done watching/listening to the band, the Rennert's showed up. Noah was SO excited to see Chloe that they took off running. I had my back turned, chasing Kyra, for only a couple minutes and they were gone. I started freaking out. No one was watching them. Noah and I had gone to Frontier Land before the performance to look at toys so I hoped/prayed that he had taken Chloe over there to show her something, and thankfully he did. Once we were all together again, then we were off to ride the rides, without all waits. I think we waited 10-15 minutes at the most.

Around 3:00 we left to have a BBQ at Grandpa and Grandma's motor home. It was nice to take a little break and to be able to see Jill and Jon. We ate and played there until about 5. Grandma was nice enough to keep Kyra and we headed back to Disneyland to ride the older rides. We had a blast. Noah rode Indiana Jones and loved it (after we bribed him into going on it), but my the time we got to Splash Mountain I didn't force him to ride that one. It was late and I knew he would hate the drop at the end. We had tickets to the new Star Tours that opened that day that we hadn't used and we wanted to ride that one. By this time Noah was done. He cried that he just wanted to go home. Julie sat out with him and the other kids while we went in, and in 5 minutes he was out. That was the longest line we stood in, waiting 45 minutes and I didn't think it was worth it, but the day was great!!