California Adventures Continued...

After our two days of Disneyland fun it was time to head home... :( But not before we made one more SURPRISE stop... at the American Girl Place…

A few weeks ago Shane decided that he would love to take the girls to the American Girl Place in Los Angeles for a fancy lunch, and a little shopping/browsing… He did a some research, called and got reservations, rounded up their American Girls and a couple of extra outfits in case he hadn’t picked their favorites, and surprised us all... What a guy!

HaHaHa… got ya… Shane is a good sport about almost everything… but excited about a day at American Girl… Not so much… . Shane went with us… actually drove us there, without complaint, as per my request… sipped his pink lemonade with the rest of the girls… at the most expensive meal our family has ever had together. (Which luckily was very tasty and filling)… And according to us girls was altogether FABULOUS and MEMORABLE and AWESOME! After lunch our cute guy stood around completely out of his element while we looked at the dolls… (And he gawked at the prices.) Two minutes into that he said, “Maybe I’ll go take a nap in the car.” I probably agreed too quickly, but he makes me a little nervous when I can see that… “How much is this going to cost me look”… or the “are you ready yet” in his eyes. I used great will power… the girls’ did go to the “portrait studio” for magazine cover shots...

And I bought them each lotion (that was 1/2 price - my bargain shopping at work.) But I avoided all the cute little outfits, the hair salon and the ear piercing stations (for only $35 we could have had both of those done… per doll!) Wow… when was the last time you spent that much on having your hair “STYLED”? It’s a good thing Shane left before he saw that… he would have fainted right there! Ormore likely said, "give me a nail I'll pierce the dolls ears!"

Tayler, Saige and Kenna and I had a great time though, and enjoyed it fully! Jadyn… she liked that they let her use a “loaner doll” (for lunch) but was more concerned with the doll than eating… and should have gone with Dad to the car… because she was tired and grouchy and in no mood for a mother/daughter bonding experience. This is an example of Jadyn's SILENT tantrums (which they usually are - she just hides her head in something... or stands with her head down looking utterely dejected. (I prefer those over the loud ones though.)

The older girls appreciated my effort though and Tay and Saige thanked me profusely as they had for both of us all week. What good kids!

Here is an example of Shane excitement of the day! And why Kenna doesn't know where we were... I'm confused on that one!

After American Girl I decided we should drive up to Hollywood Blvd and show them the “stars”. I stopped and asked at a little shop where any Disney Channel stars like Hannah Montana’s “star” would be. Apparently nobody like that has one yet… who knew? So a picture of the Hollywood sign was all we stopped for. That is one spooky street! Odd people all around. Even I looked at people along there and thought… “Is that person for real?” And like the Vegas area we had to remind our children NOT to look at all of the billboards… or store fronts… YUK!

So we headed towards Nevada. Shane relearned that he loves driving in LA gridlock… I had to remind him of the talk that Elder Wirthlin gave in the morning session of conference a few weeks back… he talked about how when he went on family trips that if they got lost they would just laugh and laugh…. When we get lost... we don't laugh... even if we aren't bugged... we don't actually LAUGH! Do you? But thinking about how PERFECT of a family it would take to do that... made us laugh! He didn't say anything about laughing about driving 6 miles in an hour but they probably did! What a great example of living life to the fullest - it helped us have a good time even when "sally" (our navigation system) once again led us astray!

We arrived at the California/Nevada Stateline which is where we always seem to stay on our road trips to California. The hotels are cheap, clean (and there is a great outlet mall too!). We normally stay at Buffalo Bills... it was full so I went for the sister casino/hotel "Whiskey Pete's" Shane got quite nervous when I told him that the rate was $29 on weeknights - it turned out just fine, but images of our "first married road trip" and a stay at the "classy" "Rainbow Vegas Hotel" conjured up bad, bad, bad memories. We were on a tight budget... pretty sure I didn't look for any reviews on the internet for this $22/night hotel... but I am fairly certain we could have got that hotel at "an hourly rate"... I would NOT recommend it! Any hotel that doesn't distinguish between smoking/non just "fumigates" all of the rooms with a nasty odor that comes out of the vents every 15 min. is OFF my list of places to stay! We bolted the doors the best we could - (the pry marks on the door didn't make us sleep very easy.) And we touched as little as possible! And woke up EARLY to get out of there... ICKY! So Whiskey Pete’s was like a palace compared to that!

Our final morning started off bad, Kenna was freaking out for some odd reason… which then escalated to a full blown Kenna tantrum. (These happen quite infrequently, but when they do it is best to vacate the vicinity). Not a happy family moment… Nor was it very "happy" when at breakfast Jadyn (who was sitting on my lap) puked all over me, her and my breakfast... What a great way to start the morning! But after a change of clothes and some calming down. We pulled out and passed a bad wreck and decided... it could be worse... it could always be worse!

The drive was long, but we listened to "tennis shoes among the Nephites" on CD - what a fun book! We also made a stop at Cove Fort in Millard County. We have always "meant" to stop here but never taken the opportunity. I was glad we did. It is always fascinating to me to learn about pioneer history. It helps me to be grateful for the ease that we have today. Can you imagine how it must bug them to hear us complain about how long it takes to get somewhere? The five hour drive we had left would have taken them 3 weeks! It helped to put it all in perspective.

We were grateful for this opportunity to be together as a family, for the memories that we made, and the adventures that we had. I think the best thing about a family trip is that we remember the good times... but we can also look back and realize... we are a family and NO family is perfect, and that is where some of the best memories come from... things don't always go exactly as we planned... and in the big picture... that IS "The Plan."