West Coast Trip

08/07/09

Over Memorial Day weekend we took the whole family to the west coast to attend Michelle's Great Aunt Eleanor's 90th Birthday. Yes, that's right we took a small child, two toddlers, and a baby through airport security and onto a plane. We don't have video or photos but I'll try to paint a picture, 3 tiny backpacks, 6 small sketchers scattered among 6 security bins, the laptop is out, all are barefoot, Nick and Nathaniel already through the metal detector ready to wander off, Mike trying to fold up the stroller and put in on the conveyer, Michelle carrying Nolan, who is now crying because we just woke him up and took him out of the carrier, oh yeah....line behind us because Providence doesn't have the "family's traveling with children" security line (like LAX), Security guard asking to go through the diaper bag (yes, it had a bottle of baby formula in it), and Noelle is lying on the floor in front of the metal detector crying because she doesn't want to walk through the weird doorway towards the big man she doesn't know.

The next big challenge was giving up the luggage cart, loading all of the luggage, and kids onto the rental car bus, then reversing this at the other end of this short leg of our journey. The GPS helped get us to Cousin Craig's house, we still need to figure out how to make it update the maps, most of the newer roads weren't shown. Once the boys saw all of cousin Cole's toys they were ready to stay at Craig's house forever. After they met Cole they were actually upset to leave to go anywhere else in and around Las Vegas. Cole's dog, Kirby, has to be the best behaved and most tolerant dog I have ever seen. Noelle chased him around for 3 days and he never seemed to mind.

We made the trip to the Hoover Dam and took the Dam Tour and later that day we visited a chocolate factory. It was time to leave the Dam when Noelle was trying to climb through the fence on the observation deck so that she could see better...since it was a 500 foot drop straight down the river, with maybe a bounce off the rocks on the way. The next day we visited the "Shark Reef" at Mandalay Bay Casino and drove down the strip. The kids liked the shark reef, as for driving down the strip, Nick and Nathaniel were sitting in back saying "Boring, Boring, still Boring".

Eleanor's Birthday Party was great. The weather cleared just in time, there was a band, plenty of food and drink, and treats for the kids. Nolan made the rounds, everyone wanted to hold him. Most of those directly related to Eleanor wearing small billboards stating who they were and how they were related. Cousin Becky has a beautiful house with a great view of the Las Vegas Strip.

We attended a brunch the following morning at Cousin Toby's house. Another beautiful house with a great view of the Las Vegas Strip. We had a great breakfast, said our goodbyes, and set out for Las Angeles. The boys had been looking forward to the drive through the desert. They wanted to see a tumble weed. It poured most of the way, we saw puddles instead of tumble weeds. After driving for 5 hours we stopped in Barstow, CA for dinner at McDonalds and then continued on to Burbank, where we caught up with Jason, Wendy, Winter, and new cousin Colby.

We spent Memorial Day at the Santa Monica Pier. The kids got to go on rides, the merry go round, chase seagulls while the Pacific Ocean surf crashed and even had authentic Corn Dogs.

We left Burbank for Anaheim the next morning. The kids didn't know where we were going, we just kept telling them it was a surprise. When we arrived at the hotel, the kids noticed the banners on the light poles in the parking lot featuring Mickey, Goofy, Minnie, and Pluto, but still didn't figure it out. We drove to the parking garage for the park and parked the car on the Daisy level, taking the elevator done past more banners featuring Mickey, Minnie, and Donald. They still didn't know where we were. Nathaniel finally figured it out as we approached the main entrance for Disneyland.

Photos from Disneyland, Eleanor's 90th Birthday, and Burbank, are on a separate page. The Las Vegas photos are below.