We left home about a half hour later than we'd planned. So at 4:30 AM we were on the road....:thmsup: As approached the grapevine area we saw no hills or mountains, the sky was brown. Not the usual haze. Brown. From all those fires!!

The boys handled the trip well & so did my car. We got 30.3 mpg with all the extras the trunk was full of.:paranoid:

The hotel looked OK from the outside & the lobby was big (not a requirement for me) but the room was tiny! They'd divided a regular room with a glass wall & glass door. You walked into the area with a king bed with about a foot around the edges. The closet was too small to use the suitcase stand it had. The fridge & microwave were fine, but on top of them was a shelf with the coffee maker & no plug there to use it. It was over my head too!:thumbsdow So I moved it to the vanity.

It was much further than advertised from the parks!!

It was clean, but no outside access.... it had interior doors & no balcony. It over looked the pool. It had ugly carpet. Kinda reminded me of plants that had been mushed or grass stains. But it got the job done. We spent a bit of Saturday morning looking at 2 other hotels & I think I've found my new home away from home!!!:thmsup:

So Friday we went through ALL of Tomorrowland! The crowds were there, & some lines were an hour (Space Mt., Submarines) but we did them all! We left the park early being pretty tired!

Saturday morning we went through all the other lands except Fantasyland before lunch. We walked over to California Adventures for lunch & rides before taking a break at the room. The boys were too hyped up to rest, but grandpa did & I changed to the cooler night air. Then we headed back to Disneyland & went through Fantasyland & watched the fireworks.

Here's a few shots of the trip:

Have you noticed how many people call AUTOPIA auto-to-pia?



Nicholas REALLY didn't want to do Thunder Mt. but I didn't give him a choice. He went & loved it after all!:D

looks like you had a blast:thmsup:

I did an invisible sticker system this time. I had sticjkers with me, but instead I gave them each 15 imaginary ones. They had to keep 10 to get a prize at the end of the trip. They each lost 3. Not bad.:thmsup:

On the way home we saw several returning firetrucks. They got all the fires under containment. Some better than others, but wel on their way to being out!

We went on teacups right after dinner..... I handled it fine, but Dumbo had it's moments!!!:paranoid:

Wow....those are lucky kids to have you as grandparents :)

Everybody's got to have something they do well..... mine's spoiling kids!:D

I love the teacups... Especially the purple ones. :) I can not wait to go back to disneyland... although my drive is quite longer than yours.

With the boys & feeding them 2 meals, it took us 9 hours to get home!!!

Of course, we did let them shoot each other & run for a few minutes at nearly every hourly pee stop!:)

:jawdrop::jawdrop: FOOD IN THE ACCORD!

technically, no. They each had a half filled cup of soda (sprite) for one hour. FOOD was at rest stops & McDonalds.:D

There's not much to clean on the inside.... just mostly bugs, bugs & more bugs!!

...hey princess, that's really great that you guys took the grandkids down to 'D'land and had a good time with them, from your latest posts, it sounds like you all needed a bit of a good time like that, like I said, really great...!!

cheers, and God Bless,

Lorne Miller

I REALLY needed it! I wish I'd liked the room more, but life goes on. It took away some of the relaxation part. Odd that I'm more relaxed in the crowds than at home sometimes.:dunno: Kids are always much better behaved away from parents, so they did wonderfully. Not perfect, but well enough to get the prize at the end.

My prince & I disagree on the reward thing. He feels the trip irself should be reason enough to be good. I'd agree if it hadn't been part of their lives already. Since it is, they need an extra boost.:)

We're supposed to go back the end of March. The last weekend of their Spring break, so they won't miss any school. I wish I could go before that without them, but now that mom's in school....I'm on fulltime duty! She'll be off then too, so I'm hoping they can go too. Paul has never been there! So hard to imagine! How do you grow up in CA without even one trip to D-land????:dunno: Usually there's at least the senior trip. (that was my prince's first time there)

Yesterday the boys played with the new balsters outside. 2 missiles went over the fence & only one was found. One missile went on our roof & is in the gutter. I need to drag out a ladder & get it before the next rain or it will get stucl in the drain! KIDS! I TOLD them not to shoot them striaght uop since it was windy! When I get the one off the roof, I'm keeping it for a while.:D

There's more troubing stuff going on now....but I'll out it in a different thread.