Road Trip!

Ugh, I can't believe this trip was a month ago already! Time is flying! Anywho, back on January 31, we loaded up our minivan with as much clothing and food we'd need for a week and set out for California. Our first stop along the way was Winston, OR to visit the Wildlife Safari. All of the pictures from it are on the other memory card and I'm feeling lazy, so you'll have to settle for this picture:

This is an emu. The emu was very interested in my window. The emu was making scary grunting noises. This picture was taken just before John rolled down and LOCKED my window. I was face to face with a grunting emu who kept sticking its head just inside the car - and it was then I discovered that I am extremely terrified of large birds. I was hitting John's arm and screaming, "Roll up the window! ROLL UP THE WINDOW!!", while John and the boys were laughing hysterically.

After the horrifying emu encounter (which I do think is at least slightly funny now), we got back on the road and made it down to Sacramento before finding a hotel so we could all crash. 

I have never seen the boys fall asleep as quickly as they did each night on this trip. And yes, Nathan routinely sleeps absolutely covered in stuffed animals. This is what he was limited to bringing on the trip.

The next day was fairly uneventful drive-wise. We continued to listen to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on audio book. We LOVE the Harry Potter books on CD for road trips. It keeps the boys entertained and makes the time go by super fast.

We made it to our hotel in Anaheim by 5pm and were super happy to finally stay at a hotel right across from the Disneyland entrance (three minute walk? Yes please!). We watched the last bit of the Super Bowl in our hotel room (they threw the ball??? why didn't they run the ball?!?!? I'm still bitter) and then headed into Downtown Disney for dinner at Tortilla Jo's. They have a balloon guy who comes around and makes balloon animals/items for the kids for free. The boys got some pretty cool battle axes. People kept stopping us and asking where we got them once we left the restaurant.

We wandered around Downtown Disney for quite a while, stretching our legs from two days in the car, watching the fireworks, confirming where we needed to go for breakfast the next morning, and just getting pumped up for the next three days of total Disney.

And since I'm going to go super picture heavy from here on, I'm going to separate these into different posts. More to come....