Sunday, May 23, 2010

San Diego trip!

On May 02, 2010 we went to Phoenix Arizona so we could catch the plane the next day and go to San Diego. The original plan was that we would leave home on Monday morning and drive straight to the airport and catch our flight. We made sure to book a later flight just for this plan, but last minute we decided that we would go into work really early on Sunday morning and than leave to Phoenix and stay at Geniel's (Miles' sister) house. We worked till about noon, packed up the car and headed out. We made really good time. I can't remember what time it was when we arrived in Phoenix, but it was still light outside. After stopping at Geneil's house, we went out to eat. We just grabbed something fast at Panda Express and than we went to Dave & Busters to play. Miley loved to ride the car like game/rides and she loved to play basketball.The next morning we went and ate Breakfast at Butterfield's. (So yummy) We than went shopping for a while. Before we knew it, it was time to head to the airport. Talk about major stress! None of us knew what we were doing. The last time I flew it was in high school. Miles hasn't flown in forever, and Mike flew last year with his Grandparents, but didn't remember anything! So we had no idea where to park. We drove around in circles for what seemed like forever. We had anyone and everyone on the phone trying to get information. I was on the Internet on my phone trying to find out where to park. At that point I wasn't concerned with how much the parking was going to cost, I would have paid anything. Than one of Miles' sisters sent Miles a text telling us where the economy parking was and since time was getting away from us we better just park there. We were really close so once we got that text it was within 5 minutes and we were parked. We still had plenty of time, but I honestly felt like on Home Alone 2 where the family is running to catch the plane. We checked our bags, got our boarding passes and age verified Miley. We didn't buy Miley a ticket since she was under 2 we choice to have her fly as a lap child. We than proceeded to security, they checked our boarding passes and ID, and than tried to tell me I still needed to get Miley a boarding pass. I wanted to kill them. I told the old man that I already did, the lady that gave us our boarding passes used Miley's birth certificate and printed her a boarding pass. Another worker had to tell the dumb man that her boarding pass was stapled to mine. At this point I was so irritated. So once we got to security, we took off our shoes, put all our stuff in the buckets and headed through the medal detector thing. Somehow Miles and Miley got separated from me and they were ahead of me. Anyway, Miley got scared walking through the medal detector and she turned around, started crying and ran back to me. I felt so bad for her. I was so irritated with the whole situation, this was all new to her and she had no idea what we were doing. They let me carry her through, thankfully because at this point she is terrified and didn't want to walk. We got our shoes and belongings and found where we were going to board and sat down and finally relaxed. We had about 45 minutes (maybe longer, can't remember) till we would board. When we were boarding the plane, the lady taking the boarding passes told us that it was not going to be a full flight so Miley could have her own seat. That was so nice. I sat by the window and Miley sat between Miles and I. Mike sat behind us. I was really worried that take off would hurt Miley's ears, so I brought a bottle for her and lots of fruit snacks to chew on. It was taking forever for us to take off. Someone announced that they were just waiting on something and it shouldn't be much longer, but it seemed like forever, because Miley wouldn't stop crying. We hadn't even taken off yet and she was really upset. A nice lady that sat on the other side of us, started talking to her and that calmed her down. We finally started moving, and after going down the big runway thing we finally started heading to the sky. Miley did great the whole time. I don't think the air pressure bugged her one bit at all. We kept Miley occupied with her fruit snakes and peanuts that they handed out. The flight was really quick. I think it was just over an hour. After we landed we went and got our luggage, and headed to the car rental place. We had made plans with Hertz to rent a full size car, but they didn't have a full size car when we got there so they gave us a van for the same price. I was actually very glad for that because I was worried about getting all our stuff in a car. We stayed at Days Hotel. Thankfully we brought our Tom Tom GPS so we found the motel right away (and every where else we went). I had Miles find an In & Out and bring food back to the room for us. We had a long day so we went to bed after eating.
The next day we went to Sea World! Sea World was so much fun. Miley was able to meet Elmo and Zoe! Miley loves Elmo. Miley and I went on Elmo's flying fish ride a number of times. We both enjoyed that. We went and saw Shamu's show twice. During the show they would have you do hand motions to get Shamu to splash, and Miley really got into that. Sea World was not busy at all, which made it so nice.The next day we went to Disneyland! Disneyland was busy, but not as busy as it was when we went last year. Miley loves Winnie the Pooh, so we thought it would be great for Miley to meet Pooh. Well, she hated it. She didn't want anything to do with him or his friends, Tigger and Eeyore. I'm thinking she was just really tired, because she is shy, but she didn't have problems meeting Elmo or Zoe the day before. We took Miley on the Pooh ride, she wasn't too sure of it at times and I would have to hold her closer. That was another sign she wasn't having a great morning, because she has liked all the other rides. The wait for the rides were so nice. Some rides we waited less than 5 minutes, and others no longer than 20 minutes. We took Miley on the train, the carousel, It's a Small World, the Pooh ride, and the Dumbo ride. Miles took her on the Dumbo flying elephant ride and I think that was probably her favorite. I went on Space Mountain, which I wasn't able to do last year because the line was too long. This year, I bet we only waited 10 minutes. After other rides, snacking, eating lunch and lots of walking we watched Celebrate : A Street Party. We saw it last year, but it was fun, we wanted to see it again. Since it wasn't the busy season, the park closed at 8:00 pm. After doing some shopping in Downtown Disney, we headed back to our car. We were going to eat dinner at Downtown Disney, but the tram like thing that would take us to our car only ran for an hour after the park closed so we had dinner at Denny's. Miley was so tired, I held her and she slept all through dinner.
The next day we went to Lego Land! When we first got into the park they have people that take your picture. I just kept walking but the man was taking Miles and Miley's picture, but Miley didn't want her picture taken so she is sitting in her stroller with her shirt pulled up over her head. It was so funny. I'm sad now that I didn't take a picture of that or go and buy the picture they took. I think Miley really enjoyed Lego Land. Lego Land seems to be more for the little kids, so I'm glad we had Miley with us to enjoy it more. Miley was tall enough to ride a good amount of the rides there. Miles took Miley on a boat ride, where you actually have to steer the boat down the water trail. Anyway, Miley was getting so mad that she couldn't steer the whole time. Miles would have grab the steering wheel to put them back on track and that made Miley so mad. I wanted to take Miley on that ride again, since it looked so fun, but after seeing that she didn't want any help, we didn't go on it again. There was another ride that we all had a ton of fun on. We were in a fire truck like thing and it was a race against other people. We had to race our fire truck to the other side of the track, and get out and spray water into a fake burning building and than race back. We missed 1st place my 1 second. We would have took 1st, but we only had one hose shooting water and the other teams were able to get both hoses to work. It was so much fun. Miley also went on a flying airplane ride and a train ride. She also loved playing with legos they had in the playgrounds. They also have a water play ground and she loved that. She got soaked! When we went into the gift shop, Miley started grabbing all kinds of Lego sets and putting them in the bottom of our stroller. I honestly don't even know why we brought the stroller anywhere. Miley hated riding in it, she wanted to walk. And that is what she would tell us when we put her in the stroller and after she would through a huge fit, she would point to the ground and say "walk". After we went to Lego Land we went to Mission beach and met Sharla and Ben there. It was dark and kind of cold so we didn't stay long but than we went back to the motel and went swimming.

The next day we went to the San Diego Zoo. The Zoo is huge! We spent the whole day there, that they were open and still didn't get to see the whole place. We saw the panda bears, which I was so excited about. I have always loved panda bears, but have never seen them in person, so that was exciting for me. There was also a petting zoo, which Miley really enjoyed. We all had a lot of fun and we all did a lot of walking at the zoo. Later that night we wanted to eat something really yummy. We were sick of eating amusement park and fast food, so we went to Anthony's Fish Grotto. It was right by the ocean. The view was so pretty and the food was so good. I had fresh salmon. We than went back to the motel to go swimming. While Miles and Mike usually headed to the hot tub, Miley and I would play in the pool. Once the sun went down, it was actually really cool outside, but if we kept moving in the water, it didn't get too cold. The next day was Sharla's wedding. She got married in the San Diego Temple. Before we headed to the temple we drove across the Coronado Bridge. The view was beautiful. Miley ended up getting a cold so she wasn't feeling that great that day. Once we got to the temple we all hung out and waited for Sharla and Ben to come out of the Temple. It was fun hanging out with almost all of the family. Miley had so much fun running around with her cousins. Once Sharla and Ben came out we all took lots of pictures and all had fun being with each other. For dinner we all ate at Barbarella. It was really yummy. Our table was being so loud. I'm amazed they didn't kick us out, even though we had outside seating. We were having so much fun and we just couldn't stop laughing. After dinner we went to the beach which was really close to the restaurant. While at the beach, Miles and I asked Steve and Lisa one question, we turn around and Miley is not at our side. Before I start to freak out, I look a little farther and she is running down the beach chasing a seagull. It was so cute. Miley loved playing in the sand. We didn't stay long because it was getting dark and I wanted to go back to the motel and start packing so we would be ready in the morning to head home. :( The next day we loaded up all our stuff and headed back to the airport. It went so smooth on the way back. We dropped off our rental van. And the shuttle took us to the airport and we had plenty of time left before our departure. The morning before I check us into our flight via my cell phone so we had pretty good boarding passes. After eating breakfast at the airport, getting our boarding passes printed and going through security, we still had over a hour to hang out and wait. Miley liked to look out the window and watch the other planes take off. Once we were finally able to load the plane, Miles told me that the man that took our stroller said it wasn't going to be a full flight so again Miley was able to have her own seat. I'm glad she didn't have to sit on my lap. I wouldn't have minded, because that's what I was planning anyway, but it was nice the way it ended up. After take off, it wasn't too long before Miley fell asleep. We had to wake her when we landed back in Phoenix. It was Mother's Day, so for my Mother's Day lunch we ate at Joe's Crab Shack in Phoenix and we did a little shopping before heading home. That was the longest drive. After being in a plane for such a sort time and getting somewhere fast, it made the drive worse, but we could have drove the whole way and that would have been worse. Miley gets car sick a lot so a while ago we bought her Sea Bands. Which our little wrist bands that work by acupuncture and they must have worked because she didn't get sick once while in the car on our trip. We finally got home around midnight. It was so nice to sleep in our own bed, but it wasn't nice to have to wake up early the next morning to go to work. Our vacation was so much fun. I'm so glad we were able to go and do everything we did. I can't wait to go back.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Easter 2010

The Saturday before Easter we got up early and headed to the park for the Easter egg hunt. It was really cold, but that didn't stop Miley from having a great time. When we first got there Miley was so excited to see all the eggs. Miley called them "balls". When it was finally time to run and collect the eggs, Miley knew right away what to do. She really enjoyed it. I was hoping she would at least get two eggs, but she got eleven. She was also very proud of her eggs.Later that day we went to Comb Wash and had our annual Harrison cook out. The weather was better so it felt pretty good. We enjoyed lots of yummy food. We had chicken, dutch oven potatoes, salads, bread, etc. It was really good. We also had a egg hunt for the kids. Miley already had practice from earlier so she was a pro. Again, she knew right away what to do. It was cute watching her play with her cousins. She also loves the outdoors so she was having a great time.
Sunday morning, Miley woke up and found what the Easter Bunny had brought her. I think she was very happy with what she got. She stayed behind the couch (where the Easter Bunny left her basket) and played with it all.


Later that day we met my parents at there house in Monticello and my Mom gave Miley her Hannah Montana Easter basket full of fun. When than went to Mancos, CO to eat our annual brunch at the Millwood Junction Restaurant. This is our third year going there. Again, it was very good. Before heading home we stopped at Wal-Mart in Cortez and picked up a few things. When we got back to my parent's house we had sub sandwiches before heading home. It was a great Easter. I love spending the weekend with family! I love spending anytime with family.