Final Thoughts

So that's our trip! I can't believe we've been home a whole month now, but I'm glad I managed to finish the report.  As you can see we had such a great time and did so many fun things, the kids were fantastic, they can't wait until next time.

I think for me some of the highlights were: 

( in no particular order)

The kids playing with their cousins.  That is still their number one thing from the trip.

Going to Disneyland, it's really a pretty magical place, with something for everyone! Kingston was totally in his element there, or as Craig says, "It's his planet!"

Watching Hunter and Craig interact with the dolphins, it was a dream come true for Hunter.

The excitement of the kids seeing a real killer whale, and just what an amazing creature they are.

Being able to share part of the trip with my mum and dad, it was really special for the kids, they miss them a lot.

The Trick or Treat party, that was such a wonderful night, especially how happy the kids were dancing with the Incredibles.

And really, it was all good, even the things that didn't quite go according to plan seem so insignificant in the big picture.  I cannot wait for the next trip, although I'm sure it'll be a few years away.

Craig's Highlight's were:

Everything in DETROIT, 

especially being able to share his kids with his family and friends,  as well as introducing the kids to the American life.  And let's not forget, that fantastic Michigan game!

Hunter's favourites were:

All of Sea World,

Halloween at Disneyland,

and spending time with his cousins.

Mackenzie loved:

Being with her cousins,

Breakfast with Shamu,

and her Princess Make over.

As for Kingston, I'm not sure what his highlights were, perhaps all the characters he got to meet, I think we can safely say it wasn't the flights!!

Our final Day

Saturday 11th October

Day 23

I had left our plans open for Saturday, not knowing how tired the kids would be after the party, we still had our tickets for Universal Studios if they were up to it.

The kids didn't wake up too early for a change, and we decided to walk over to Mimi's for some breakfast.  It was a beautiful day.

Once we were done it was packing time, we managed to squeeze everything in, except we still had a bag of dirty laundry, so we decided to go via Walmart so we could pick up an extra bag to bring with us.  Then we continued on to Hollywood.

It seemed to take forever to get to Universal Studios, there was a ton of traffic.

But we made it into the park, I think it was close to one by that time.  This is another place built on hills, they do have escalators to ride on BUT you have to take the child out of the stroller to ride, which always makes things a little harder.  We went to the curious George play area first, then we decided to go down to the lower lot, Hunter was going to brave the Jurassic Park ride.

I waited with Kenzie and Kingston while they rode

 

And got this picture just as they came down

That's them in the 2nd row.

Hunter didn't LOVE the ride, it was a little scary for him, so we decided to ride the 171 escalators back  to the upper level.

We stopped halfway for a photo op.

Craig and Hunter wanted to try out the Simpsons Ride.  



It had a wait time of 25 minutes, so we agreed to meet back there in about 40 minutes, and I took Kenzie and Kingston for a walk through the park.

We saw the Incredible Hulk

Some interesting Halloween decorations

I guess Woody Woodpecker was a vampire for Halloween!

Kenzie tried out the Harley from Terminator 2

And Kingston wanted a ride too

We saw Donkey from Shrek and Kenzie went to talk to him and get her picture

Then we saw Shrek himself

We went back to wait for the boys, and ran into Bart Simpson

The boys had loved the ride, we decided to hurry over to the Shrek 4d movie which was due to start.  Once again Hunter was frightened.  I had to sit way in the back with Kingston on non-moving seats, which was ok.

Afterwards we got to see Spongebob Squarepants, who Hunter had been hoping to meet.  The kids love Spongebob.

We were getting hungry, and running out of time, so we decided to leave then, and go to Hard Rock Cafe for a quick dinner before we went to the airport.

This is Hunter in front of the Universal Globe

Universal Studios is okay, but it's no Disneyland.  I guess older kids might enjoy it, but it's not really worth a full day there.

We managed to get to the Alamo at LAX, turn the car in and get on a shuttle to the airport pretty quickly, then it was all that fun security stuff. We didn't have to wait too long before we boarded our 13 hour flight.  I think Kenzie barely made it through dinner before she was out, and she slept until breakfast, so probably 11 hours of the flight.  The boys did pretty well too.

It was almost 6am Monday 13th October when we landed in Auckland.  It was such a relief to be home, but we were sad that our trip was over.  Craig had to fly back to Sydney bright and early the next morning, so we had a quiet day at home, unpacking and doing laundry, while the kids got to rediscover their toys.

Mickey's Trick or Treat Party

We walked into the party, and they had decorated the park even more.  Most of the kids and even lots of adults were in costume. We were given a bag each for the kids to keep their loot in, and decided to head toward the back of the park and work our way forward.

We bumped into some cheeky chipmunks along the way, so of course we stopped to say hi.

Kenzie with Dale

And Chip

The party didn't start until 7:30, so of course Kingston was asleep before we arrived.  Chip saw him sleeping.

Here's Chip checking out Hunter's muscles, all the characters were very impressed, especially when he showed them how fast he can run.

Kenzie started dancing with the pirates, she was having a blast and was definitely happy being the centre of attention.

Kenzie had a treasure map, and they found the treasure

We continued along our travels, and ran into Wendy and Captain Hook from Peter Pan

As we walked further back into the park, Craig ran off to ride the Screamin' rollercoaster, and I waited with the kids to meet Ariel and Mulan.  He loved the ride and was insisting I go try it, but I was quite happy not to.

They rode King Triton's Carousel, which has sea creatures instead of horses.

Along the way we visited the Trick or Treat stations and the kids were filling their bags, with all kinds of candy, but also healthy treats like baby carrots and raisins and apple slices.

We saw the meet and greet for Mickey and Minnie, the line was quite long but we decided to wait.  Cruella De Ville came along looking for puppies, she rounded up some of kids to be in her gang.  She was fantastic, Hunter had fun with her, of course he wanted to join her gang.  Kenzie did not!

I tried to take some night shots while we were in the line, the park is really pretty all lit up.

That's screamin' in the picture below

I think we ended up waiting about 45 minutes, which included a break of about 10 minutes, where they left to get some "cheesecake".  By now Kingston was awake, and once he saw Mickey he was so excited I had to hold him back.  Hunter plonked himself down in the stroller and was actually asleep for a few minutes.

Finally it was our turn to meet Mickey and Minnie.

I managed to get a couple of pictures when......

disaster struck.....

My camera battery died.

I was so bummed, I had intended to charge it once we got to the hotel and I had forgotten.

So there will be no more pictures from the rest of the night.

:(

We left Mickey and Minnie, and we thought we'd go over to the redwood creek area.  Our timing was perfect, we were able to watch the fireworks  that were on at Disneyland from where we were standing.  The kids got lots more candy, we decided to put their bags away since we couldn't bring too much home with us.

Craig had wanted to ride the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, so we went over to the Backlot and while he went to ride, the kids and I waited to meet Belle and Pocahontas.  Just as we were nearing the front of the line, they announced that Cinderella and Snow White would be taking over soon, Kenzie had been dying to meet Snow White, so we got back in line so we could meet her too.

Craig came back as we were waiting so he took the boys and we joined them once we'd met Snow White.  Kenzie asked her what her prince was called? She said he likes her to call him Prince!

We went over to the boys and there was a dance party going on.  Mr and Mrs Incredible were there dancing with all the kids, they took Kenzie and Hunter by the hands and danced with them, it was adorable, and of course I had no camera!  Craig took a couple on his iphone but it was a bit dark.

It was really neat just to stand and watch them, they must've danced there for almost an hour before we decided it was getting late and it was time to go.  It was after 11:00 and the party would be ending at 11:30 anyway.

It was close to midnight before we got the kids back to the hotel and into bed.

It had been a great night!

Here's a picture of their candy haul.

Friday 10th October - The secret revealed

The drive back up to LA was pretty cruisy, yay for carpool lanes, that is until we were a few miles from Anaheim and got stuck in traffic, it was miserable, we were all hot and tired by then, especially Kingston, but we got there in the end. We were staying our last night at the Howard Johnson Anaheim, or Hojo for short.

We checked in and found our room, it was nice and big and overlooking the swimming  pool. We got the kids into their swimsuits and went outside but we weren't going to the pool.

No no no

Hojo has just opened a fantastic pirate water park, that's where we were going.  The kids were excited! There were slides and fountains and a pirate ship with a big bucket on top, and when the bucket fills with water a bell sounds, and you better watch out!!  You can barely see Hunter in this picture, yes he stood there on purpose, and the whole bucket emptied onto him.

Even Kenzie got brave and tried the small waterslide, and she realised she liked it.

She wasn't quite so eager to try the bigger one, but Hunter had fun on it.

There was a tiny little paddling pool where Kingston hung out, he's not usually too excited about swimming but he had a great time, afterwards Craig took him in the hot tub and he didn't want to leave!

We played for about an hour, before we decided to go back to the room and get the kids bathed and dressed so we could get some dinner.

The kids were trying to guess where the party was going to be, I told them it was somewhere we had been already on the trip.  Hunter guessed Disneyland.  He's a smart kid! 

We were going to Mickey's Trick or Treat Party at California Adventure.

The kids had wanted to be the Incredibles kids this year, and since there's 3 of them it was perfect.  

We had Dash

Violet

And even baby Jack-Jack

We were all very excited.  We decided to grab dinner at Mimi's which is just across from the Hojo.  It was a great meal and they got so many comments on their costumes.  

Then we just had a short walk across the street and we were at the party.