Long Weekend

We headed on our trip right after Brandon’s graduation.  It took us a bit longer since there was some construction on our first choice of routes.  We went the long way, which we haven’t done in awhile.  It is more scenic, so we hit up the places we normally go – like this clam chowder place.  While walking there, we waited at a stop light, and when it was time to walk, Brandon shouted, “The white man!”  Too bad there was a Caucasian couple further down the street.  I was hoping they wouldn’t hear him.   There are more stops along the slower path, which is good in some way, but also tends to slow things down.  Also slowing us down was the fact that we were driving through the middle of the day, when the kids were most awake.  It just meant we had to make more potty and food stops.  We had a hard time coordinating potty/eating breaks.  Once the sun went down, we told the kids no more books and toys.  I did show them a picture of the new Cars cake pan.  Brandon said, “It’s so cute!”  Dave told him, “Say, ‘It’s so cool!'”  So Brandon repeated what Dave had suggested.  Then Brandon said, “Cool, not cute?”  Dave confirmed.
We didn’t get in until 1030pm to Dave’s parents’ home (9 hours from when we had first left school).  Luckily, we were not in a rush, since we weren’t planning on going to the park until the next day.  Dave tried to get Peyton to sleep, but she was wired!  Brandon fell asleep quickly, as he hadn’t slept as much in the car.  Dave was rubbing Peyton’s back, when she said, “Don’t touch me!”  We were shocked she said it so clearly.  She finally settled down and fell asleep, but it was too late for us to sneak out.  We just decided to sleep so we weren’t completely exhausted the next day.
We got up when the kids did, and they were off to find Grandma, who was sad to not play with them the night before, even though we told her it was way past their bedtimes.  She got an hour of play time with them, while feeding them breakfast.  Dave and I took our time getting ready, re-packing for our one-night hotel stay.  We got down for our own breakfast, and then cleaned up to get ready.  We left around 9am, and headed out.  By the time we were in the park, it was around 10am.  Meg, Jeff and the girls were headed down to us as well.  We were going to spend some cousin time at the park.  We got on Small World, some fast passes, the tortilla factory, Pirates and the new Ariel ride before they got there.  Peyton loves Small world, but is not fond of Pirates.  Even though I told her it was not real, and if she was scared to close her eyes.  She not only closed her eyes, she pressed her face into my chest.  She also kept her hat on, to cover her face with the wide brim. She was totally scared on the waterfalls, whimpering the whole way down.  She tries to be so strong, but couldn’t help it.  After we left that ride, I asked her, “Do you want to go see Ariel?”  She said, “Yes, I wanna hug her.”  She was also able to tell me where the ice cream place was.  As we rolled by it, at 11am in the morning, she said, “Ice cream, right dere.”
We were actually surprised by the lack of crowds, given it was Saturday of the long weekend.  Most of the rides were less than 15 minutes, which wasn’t too bad, especially since it was understood that we would not be riding anything long than that anyways.  Since Abby was around, we were hoping Brandon would find more courage.  He did add some more rides to his repertoire – namely, Indy, which he is now tall enough for.  He knew that there was going to be a snake in the ride.  I’m not sure how, maybe talking to others at school, but he was only an inch taller than the ride allowed, which means most of his friends can’t ride it yet.  I was so excited that he was willing to go.  He had already done Tower of Terror with Dave, who said, “He screamed it out, but no tears.”  I missed out on that, but got to see how he handled Indy.  He was practically running to the ride, but as soon as he entered the cave, he came to a halt, and waited for me and my hand.  He was a little tentative heading in, but kept asking questions and talking.  We waited in a short line, and when we got to the front, he was standing in front of me.  I asked him if he wanted to be on the edge, or if he wanted the middle.  He quickly pushed me in front of him, and I took the edge.  I repeatedly told him things weren’t real.  This helped him through the ride.  He clutched the bar in front of him with both hands, and just looked around.  Once the ride started, and got more rough, he began screaming.  It was more in short bursts, as he recovered.  Both older kids got to go on Matterhorn.  I asked Peyton if she wanted to go.  She answered a quick, “NO.”   We had made a reservation for the BBQ place, which meant tons of food.  We had to wait a little for our table, since we were early.  Dave took our kids to the petting zoo, while I was moving our stroller around.  I realized I was walking alone in Disneyland, and just took it all in, instead of being in a huge rush.  I met up with them in a few minutes, but just as I had gotten there, Dave was wrapping up with the zoo.  He said he saw some girl either get spit on or peed on by a goat, all up her arm.  He knew at that point it was time to go.  I’ve never been one for petting zoos, and that definitely sealed the deal.  Good thing I didn’t see it.
They set us up at a table after a few more minutes of waiting.  The little ones hung out at the end of the table in high chairs, while the rest of the families paired up down the table, so we all sat across from our respective counterpart.  Brandon wanted to sit next to Abby but we convinced them to sit across from each other, so we could manage things a little better.  There was musical entertainment, as well as the food, which was enough to keep the kids busy.  We walked away with 4 boxes of leftover BBQ – enough for 2 more meals for the 8 of us!
I thought Brandon was going to conquer all the mountains with Space being his last, as Abby had with her ride on Matterhorn.  We were all set up with fast passes and both dads had the two older kids, when suddenly Dave and Brandon re-appeared.  They had bailed while Abby and Jeff continued.  Brandon was too tired, and too scared to continue.
We checked into our rooms, and weren’t able to get adjoining rooms or more than a king bed. Since we had a cooler, we took care of all 4 boxes of leftovers from dinner.  It was way too much food.  The kids fell asleep quickly, with Peyton on the floor, while Brandon was in the bed.  Since I was worried about her, I slept on the floor with her.  I was a little cold, since I know Peyton doesn’t like covers, I took her blankets to keep me warm, so I could keep her warm (since she was snuggling up next to me).  I had draped the covers over my head, but early in the morning, I felt her tapping around my head, finding the edge of the cover, and pulling it back to uncover my head.  She then fell back asleep, as did I.  I heard Brandon up, but he was quiet, and Dave was up getting repacked.  When I finally decided to get up, I asked Dave what time it was.  He said, “8 o’clock.”  I couldn’t believe Peyton had slept that long.  Just as I was moving around, I saw her stirring.  She was yawning, blinking, and rubbing her eyes, and finally, she decided to get up.  Turns out we were lagging this morning.  We all met up for oatmeal outside the park.  We started out getting fast passes for the cars, then hopping on Small world.  B, A, and P’lope were all in one row of the boat, while Peyton was behind.  It made for a photo opportunity, but the kids weren’t all looking at the same time.  Of course.   We then went on the small roller coaster, which Peyton was tall enough this time!  We measured her, and she was one inch over.  We walked together, 6 of us, then suddenly, we heard screaming above, and Peyton slowed down.  I picked her up to carry her the rest of the way.  Since I was carrying her, the attendant wanted to measure her again.  She put her against the measuring stick, and said, “Oh, you’re a big girl.”  Peyton repeated, “I big girl” and smiled.  Dave took some pictures of her first roller coaster.  She wasn’t smiling in them.  She was very brave.  She didn’t cry, but looked a bit concerned.

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Peyton got a kiss from Mickey, and wouldn’t stop talking about it!  Brandon pinched his nose (which we later scolded him for, as he was talked to by the staff).  Maybe we need to tell him about Disneyjail.  This is her telling Grandma when we got home.
We tried to get Brandon to go on Indy again, and he declined.  Also declined Tower.  He was able to do Soaring, which Dave took the older kids to on his own.  He had had a break when I took my kids, and Jeff took Abby to see Aladdin.  I thought Peyton would like seeing “Jazz-man”.  We waited a little in line, then climbed up the stairs to the balcony section.  As soon as we got situated, Brandon announced he had to go potty.  It was either 1) leave Peyton with Uncle Jeff, or 2) Uncle Jeff graciously offered to take Brandon and Abby agreed to stay with Peyton and me.  Brandon was okay with option 2, as was Abby. We talked about the show, and trying to explain to Peyton what we’d be seeing.  Abby had come with other friends before, who were scared, especially by the opening scene.  I was trying to avoid that with Peyton.  I told her if at any point she was scared she would, (she responded), “Close the eyes.”  At this time, Peyton asked, “Where’s Daddy?”  I told her that he was downstairs, outside of the theater.  She said, “I don’t see him.”  Abby was also hoping her Dad and Brandon would make it back before the show started.  They did with about 5 minutes to spare.  Both were out of breath as the restroom had been back down the stairs, outside of the theater.  We had make such a rash decision about going to the theater, we forgot to do potty checks.  Turns out, I didn’t have a diaper either, and Peyton’s was slightly wet already.  The show started, and Peyton was a little scared by the Cave of Wonders.  She was on my lap, so at she felt a little more safe at least.  She did turn her face into me, and hid.  There were several times when she was whimpering, but when I said, “Look at Jazzman,” she was okay.  She watched part of the show with a pouty lip.  I was trying to keep Brandon quiet, as he was laughing at the Genie’s timely jokes, like Lady Gaga.  Some of the jokes were over his head, but he laughed (loudly) because the audience was laughing – what does he know about Oprah’s last show, or the failed end of the world?  We had talked about him using his library mouse voice, but he needed reminders.  The kids were really into the show, so it is somewhat promising should we ever decide to take them to the real theater.  The show was about 45 minutes or so from what I remember, and it kept their attention.  After the final act, Peyton finally relieved some of her tension, and whined/cried just a bit.  I think she was struggling to maintain composure, and was glad it was all done.  I asked her if she liked it, and she nodded, and said, “Yes.  I scared.”  We finished up with the parks and parted ways.  We headed back to Dland, hoping to give Brandon another opportunity to ride Space.  He declined, so we headed out, too.  Sunday was more crowded, so there weren’t as many rides we could just hop on.  We headed to our new-found go-to place for dinner.  Brandon had his “usual” omelet, while Peyton enjoyed her noodles.  Then we headed back to Dave’s parents.  We spent more time with them, and kept the kids up to enjoy some more grandparent time.  We put them to sleep before heading out ourselves.  We just went to hang out at a small dessert place.  We didn’t want to stay out too late, since we were headed home the next day.
This morning, we woke up after Brandon.  Peyton was trying to get out, but couldn’t turn the door knob.  She kept saying, “Someone lockit da door. Someone lock-it da door!”  I ignored her, as did Dave.  I hadn’t even known Dave was still in the room, since he usually can’t sleep in.  Then she laid down next to me again, as she had given up on the door.  After rolling around a few more minutes, she told me she pooped.  I couldn’t ignore that.  Soon Dave got up, too.  At this time, we realized it was only 715am!  The only good thing about it was it got us up to get ready for our trek back.  We figured many more people would be going home today than were coming down on Friday.  It turned out to be a lengthy drive, but we made it worthwhile.  We stopped to take the kids to the beach about 2 hours in.  Peyton’s never really been in the ocean, as she was only a few months old when we went to SD.  She had so much fun, and Dave was taking pictures of the two of them in the sand.  I left her alone so he could get some pictures without me being in them, and no sooner did I do that that the wave knocked her off her feet.
The next in the series is of her soggy bottom.  Good thing we had plenty of clothes to change her.  She had fun.  Here’s another two pictures of these crazy kids.
One was from the beach, the other from the trolley in toon town.

Peyton slept 3 times on the way home, while Brandon had only one early nap.  He managed to keep himself rather entertained the entire way back.  He did break up the drive by asking to potty several times.  I made it a point to go whenever we did stop so I wasn’t the one holding up traffic.  It is better when they are in diapers 🙂  although Peyton told us before our last stop that she had pooped, and she had not.  But her diaper was wet, so she may have gotten confused.  This trip took us about 10 hours, but our stops were part of the journey.  Forgot we had stopped at a park to let Peyton “off leash”.  We let her run on the grass to avoid her clumsiness, but she still managed to find a tree, and tripped over the root, landing on her hands (luckily).  I thought I heard a knocking sound, like she hit her face on the tree, but she didn’t cry, had not marks, and no blood, so maybe I imagined it.  I asked her what she hit, and she held up her hands.  Glad she is learning having her hands break her fall is a lot better than her face.  She did still go down at our normal bedtime, which is amazing considering how much she slept already today.  Brandon gave us no trouble going down, while I unpacked everything.  Dave took a break out with Kenny tonight to unwind from our trip.  This will be a short but intense week, as it will be spent playing catch up at work.  Then Friday, we go on our first summer field trip!