our first summer vacation of 2009

i met up with my sister andrea and we packed up the car and off we were headed to my parents house with nathan and his 3 cousins for our first summer vacation of 2009.

he was fussy the last leg of the drive so his cousin let him borrow his baby jaguar to soothe him ;)

the next day we were headed for disneyland for 2 days! we stayed at the la quinta inn that had a great hot breakfast in the morning and a tram that took us directly to the park. our room had a separate room with sliding doors that was the kids room with fun kid type furniture and bunk beds.

the first day was slightly warm but not too bad. i was able to take nathan on "the pirates of the caribbean" and "the buzz lightyear ride" and all the rides in fantasyland. i was a nervous wreck taking him on any rides! i didn't want him to start freaking out crying and me not being able to much of anything since we were on a ride. but he did just fine! i REALLY wanted him to go on "it's a small world" but he was sleeping and i definitly wasn't going to wake him! he needed to sleep every chance he got! disneyland was quite difficult with an infant! i was constantly stopping to check on him, re-applying sunblock every chance i got, running over people left and right with the stroller, stopping a lot with diaper changes and bottle feedings. it was exhausting! luckily my mom came with us and was a major help to me! oh and i had so much crap packed in 2 bags for "just in case" issues and didn't use a darn thing. so i had to lug it around the park for no reason! so nathan was just fine at disneyland, i on the other hand was a mess! nathan was also able to get his first pair of mickey ears :) they're the second row down, middle picture, the baby blue ones.

our 2nd day we went to california adventure. my mom stayed with nathan back at the hotel because it was cold with a chance of rain that day and she wasn't up for that. what a difference it made not having to push a stroller! my sister synthia and i took my nephew jacob on the "tower of terror" for his first time. he screamed like a girl, ROFL! the ride started with him grabbing onto my hand and by the time the ride was over he had both his arms wrapped around my entire arm! we also rode the "grizzly river run" water raft ride which gets your SOAKED and it started raining as we were on it. so we were double soaked! here are some random pictures of both days...

after our disneyland/california adventure trip we headed to huntington beach for the family picnic and to see the rest of our family. we went swimming, my mom and i went walking out on the pier, got chocolate dipped apples at the rocky mountain chocolate factory (YUM!), ate dinner at the ihop on main street then went back to the hotel to sleep for the night. the next day i woke up horribly sick with a stuffed up head. so i took benadryl and slept the whole day. the day after that was our family picnic at central park. we also went to my brother matts house to visit with them for a few. more pictures...

once the huntington beach trip was over, we headed back to my parents for a few days. again, we went swimming and hung out with the family. we went to the bass pro shop in rancho cucamonga which was AWESOME! it's a HUGE 2 story sports store with boats, guns, fishing stuff, hiking stuff, camping stuff, nascar stuff, hunting stuff and MORE! we were there for 3 hrs and still didn't see the whole store!

they had a laser gun shooting range.
and a rockwall that my nephew jacob climbed.
after that we went to the rainforest cafe for dinner. i LOVE that place!
and now we're finally back home. exhausted. sick. and feeling jet lagged, lol. whens the next vacation?