I'll entitle our California trip as "ocean trip" because that's all the girls called it.
Where to begin.
Back in July Marc saw a Southwest special for flights that were 39$ to Orange County. We've NEVER taken the girls on a vacation that was just "us." We usually go visit family etc. So this was our first family of 4 vacation. Anyway. Marc books the tickets and shows me the confirmation of 3 tickets. I'm so confused. Obviously we are a family of 4. I ask him about Ellie's ticket and he informed me she wasn't two yet. I had no words!! I mean Ellie turned 2 in May! Anyway. That was the first mishap.
Day 1
We land in Orange County. I'm thinking Marc rented a car from the airport… but learned he rented from a place that comes to get you (which means we had to wait with impatient girls!!)...and then you pick up your car at wherever their location is. We get loaded in this shuttle service and the person asks us if we're planning on picking up more people. I'm confused again and answer no… and the driver says, "Oh, really? I assumed you had more because you rented a 15 passenger van." Are you laughing yet? Because I about died - and the story gets better! But a 15 passenger van?! We all could have had our own row!! Luckily, we "downgraded" to a minivan and the girls thought it was amazing.
The Marriot at Dana Point is where we stayed and this was the first time the girls had ever been to a hotel. They were beyond excited and after getting them changed and loaded up we headed to Strands beach. We spent hours playing in the sand and chasing birds. Maree was much more willing to get into the ocean than Ellie. And while Maree is a very strong swimmer at home, the ocean is obviously a whole different thing. She is so used to opening her eyes in our pool that she thought she could do this with the ocean… after several bouts of sand in the eyes… she started to learn to close them…but it also made her not really willing to go in without daddy because she couldn't see. Her favorite thing to do was stand her ground when the waves came in and tell us how strong her legs were when they didn't knock her down. Ellie, on the other hand, only went in if she was held. On one occasion Marc took her in and they jumped a few waves, but then a big wave came and I knew Marc didn't see it coming… it hit them and took them both under (he said it even made them knock heads). I was worried the force of knocking them down would make him drop her.. and she's not a swimmer like Maree so I panicked. BUT, they came up together laughing - I was shocked!! This also made her spend the rest of the afternoon in the sand. We made castles, gave her a mermaid tail etc. The only real mishap at the beach was that while playing in the sand, Ellie got stung by a bee (She didn't even cry!!) Thank goodness (we learned) that she's not allergic!
After spending hours at the beach we decide to head back to the hotel. On the way there, Marc sees a coffee place that has a little alley way drive through. He decides to quick whip in there for a coffee, but forgets he's in a minivan and not his jeep… and we scrape the entire side of the minivan on a "No Parking" sign. So he continues to pull in and park only to realize that maybe coffee doesn't sound that great after all and he whips it into reverse in this tiny alley way. Well, this minivan doesn't have a backup camera like his jeep and he backs right into a guy's car. In less than 2 minutes we've pretty much had 2 accidents. Talk about eventful!!!
Then we get to the hotel and I've never washed so much sand out of things in my life. It took forever. Meanwhile, the girls are running around the hotel room thinking it's the coolest thing they've ever seen… a room where everyone stays together! They were way bigger fans of getting to sleep with a parent than we were of getting to sleep with them!
Day 2.
I should probably now bring to light that when Marc originally booked these tickets he had us coming home on this night on the 6:00 flight so that way we had the whole day to pretty much play. However, the week of the trip I learn he has a fantasy football draft that he needs to come back for… so he changes the flight to 2:10. I'm not very happy about this because I obviously wanted to do something fun with the girls and now we can't really because he changed the flight to be out of Ontario - which is an hour from where we were staying. SO, we get the girls up and decide to get coffee/breakfast. Yes. We head back to the same coffee place that we had 2 accidents at the day before. I'm still not sure why this happened… but as we're waiting in line in the drive through, Marc asks me to switch him seats and have me drive. We literally do a chinese firedrill. Once we pull up to order, Marc realizes he doesn't have his wallet and starts to panic about losing it. We search the car. It's not there. We go back to the hotel, it's not there. We re-drive the route to coffee and don't find it anywhere. The valet people up front were the last people he handed money to before coffee… and it's not there. SO we spend 2 hours trying to figure out how we're going to fly home with no identification for him and trying to find this wallet.
Then the phone rings. Some good samaritan finds it and tells us he has it and where to meet him. Thank you Jesus!! The bad news, is that this guy was a bicyclist and he literally found Marc's wallet on the street (so the wallet mishap must have occurred during the changing of our seats) and continued on his bike ride miles away. By the time he stops to figure out who's wallet he has (and calls lifetime fitness b/c of Marc's membership card in his wallet...to figure out what Marc's phone number was) and to call us… we're about 45 minutes away from him. Which means we're going to miss our "new" flight. So after retrieving the wallet… I make an executive decision and say that we should just spend another night in California.. and fly back in the morning… he can do his draft from the hotel. Why didn't we just do that from the beginning?!!!?? After re-booking the flights again, and finding a new hotel, we decide to take the girls to knotts berry farm.
This was probably the best decision because seeing the joy on their flushed faces (it was 103 degrees… and I had no sunscreen b/c I'd thrown away my travel bottle at the hotel) was totally worth it. We tried out these little airplanes first for them to fly and while they both got in right away… but Ellie panicked and wanted out. The next ride I forced Ellie to do it with me… and boy did I look like a terrible parent for about a solid minute…but once the ride started to move, Ellie went from screaming to laughing… and she was happy to do every ride after that!
Overall, I have to say we did a pretty good job of not getting to upset about any of the events that happened… and the girls surprised us the most - they really behaved well and I was so proud of them!! I can't believe how grown up they seemed on this trip!
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