With a two week vacation ahead of us, we began with a week in Huntington Beach, the site of my husband's Raising Through Childhood. A one year old certainly makes the cross-country plane trip more - how shall we say it? - eventful (to be polite), but the chance to see her California grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins made the (seemingly infinite) plane ride worth it. (Though I felt rather like I was living with the Up movie dog Dug. "Light!" "Window shade!" "Hair of person in front of us!" "Cheerios!" ... repeated every 30 seconds).
We kicked off our Huntington Beach time with a family exodus to Disneyland, where Emma's grandparents arranged to have all us kids/grandkids stay at the Grand Californian hotel - the gorgeous lobby was perhaps only surpassed in benefit by its location right in the middle of California Adventure park. While the 1 year old and 8 month old were a bit young to really "get" Disney, the four year old had a ball (as did the adults). Cars Land was in particular a hit, including fun with " 'Mater ":
While I had been to Disneyland several times (it being just 30 minutes from Huntington Beach), the Aladdin show was new to me, assisted in amazing-ness by the VIP seating scored for us by my brother-in-law (who not coincidentally worked at Disney for 10 years). Emma's eyes were the approximate size of space saucers as she soaked up the lights, dancing, and "magical" camel that walked down the aisle beside her. We also enjoyed "meeting" Minnie Mouse, an aviator (hurrah for jobs for women!) mouse by the Soarin' California ride.
After dinner and putting the kiddos to bed, a contingent of adults went hardcore and returned to the park from 9-11:30pm to catch the fireworks and hit the rides that were crowded during the day. All in all a stellar - if exhausting - opening chapter to la vie de la Californie
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