Well, we are back from California and happy to say that the family is finally healthy and back to normal! I was still sick the day before I was supposed to leave, so my mom and dad finally talked me into going to the doctor. Sure enough, I had a sinus infection and a double ear infection. Ugh. Luckily, the antibiotics kicked in quickly and I was feeling good and ready to take on CHA! It was so nice to see Heidi and spend this time together. Heidi is living her dream and has decided to start up a kit club company. I am so proud of her! It was such a treat to be able to spend time with her, but add to that being surrounded by brand-new scrapbooking products and it was heaven! I am not sure how much help I was to Heidi while we were there, but it did make me see how hard it must be for Heidi to run her business. There are sooo many cute products out there! :)
Here is Heidi and I meeting Heidi Swapp at the show! Heidi Swapp was very sweet and she had some very cute products at the show. The best part was seeing all the page samples in real life, they are so much better than they are on the internet.
After Heidi left, the rest of the fam and I went to Disneyland. We were all very excited to see what he was going to think of this place. The day did not start off the best. Charlie was pretty crabby in the morning so I just kept hoping that he would snap out of it once we got there. Of course, he was overwhelmed at first. He wanted to be very close to us as he took it all in. We wandered around for a little while and decided to start out slow by going on the Mark Twain boat ride. Everybody was underwhelmed by this so we headed straight to Pirates of the Carribbean after it was over. This turned out to be a big mistake. I am not sure why I did not put it together before we went on the ride, but darkness + water + loud noises are not Charlie's favorite things, especially all at once. Charlie tried to be brave at first, but once he got one single drip of water on him, he was in meltdown mode. He was sure he was going to get drenched and just kept screaming "I don't want to get wet!" Eric is always so good at comforting him when he needs it, so he scooped him right up and had Charlie put his head on his shoulder while he covered his ears from the noise. The ride could not end soon enough. We took it easy after this and ate some food and wandered the park some more. We really wanted to do the new Nemo Submarine ride but the line was way too long. We did go on the Roger Rabbit ride and Autotopia. By far Charlie's favorite part of the park was Toontown. We toured Mickey Mouse's house and saw Minnie and Pluto. So fun!
Charlie meeting Mickey Mouse
Charlie the Disneyland tour guide, the ears make him official
We also went to the beach while we were visiting. It was a pretty chilly day. Again, Charlie was not too thrilled with the experience. He wanted nothing to do with the sand/water. So we spent just a short time at the actual beach and then walked aound Balboa Island.
Merry-go-round fun with grandpa (I think he enjoyed this just as much as anything at Disney! I think we could have saved ourselves some money and gone straight here!)
We spent the rest of the time spending time with family. Jon drove in from Vegas to spend a few days with us but he ended up being sick most of the time. Charlie got to meet a lot of new faces including the Kingma's, the San Paolo's and all of my dad's side of the family.
Charlie enjoying a game of shuffleboard at Grandma Zee's house.
The trip was a great time and I was so relieved that Charlie did much better than our trip to Vegas last summer! The biggest lesson I learned about traveling with the little guy was to think about and cater a little more to who he is. Most kids would have LOVED Disneyland at his age, but I just don't think he was ready. He is always an observer first and I think he just needed much more time to soak it all in. (not that he hated it, I just don't think he was as big a fan as oher kids). The same thing at the beach. He does not really like to get wet or have his hands/feet dirty, so why did I think that he would like the beach??? I really need to think about this stuff more in the future. Of course, I want to keep exposing him to new things, but maybe in the future I can evaluate the situation and adjust my expectations of the experience for Charlie. Isn't it amazing how our kids teach us so much?
So that is the summary of our trip to California. To end it all, my mom and I got sick on the day that we were leaving (thanks Jon!). I was sicker this time than when I had the sinus/ear infections. Too bad it was viral, so medicine was not going to help. I don't think I left the couch for two days. Poor Eric and Charlie! Anyway, we are all better now and things have returned to normal. Halleluijah!
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