Wow's Gal: California Here We Come! September 24

California here we come!!!!

For the past year or so we have been collecting items to send to Samoa. Clothes, supplies, food, etc. We had to rent an extra car to haul everything to California to ship it out, so while Seuao drove the rental, Sarah rode with me and the girls! We broke the drive up by staying in Vegas overnight with Manu & Eti. We were so blessed with the timing of everything - Manu happened to be on his two-week leave from Afghanistan, so it was so good to see them! Sarah got to stay with a friend of hers that lives in Vegas. Manu & family followed us into California the next day and we all crashed Seuao's brother-in-law's family reunion! When we got to LA, Sarah flew back to Utah. Unfortunately for us, LA had been experiencing severly unseasonal warm weather - you'd think at the end of September it would be just lovely - noooo - it was just plain H.O.T.!

One definite highlight of our trip was Disneyland! Seuao's brother-in-law's uncle hooked us up with free passes into Disneyland!!! Seriously so much fun!!! We only spent the one day there, but we were determined to do as much as we could! But by 10:00 a.m. it was already 90+ degrees - we went through all of our water in the first line we stood it! I guess you could say we acclimated though - by the time it got up to 114 (no lie) most of the park had cleared out, and we literally walked right on to every single ride we wanted!

In line at Nemo's Submarine Voyage - already sweating at 9:00 a.m.

Super thankful that the submarine is nice and cool!

In line at Autopia - poor Tess flushed from the heat!

Lily, concentrating fully on her driving responsibilities!

Astro-Blasting with Buzz Lightyear

We ran into Minnie in Tomorrowland!

And when we turned around, there were Chip & Dale!

Ice cream before lunch? In super-hot Disneyland - ABSOLUTELY!

Lunch with the Princesses in Ariel's Grotto! I don't know if we loved the princesses or the air conditioning more!

Lady Bug Boogie in A Bug's Land

Sorry it's sideways - but it's Mickey!

The Jungle Cruise (um, can you tell it's HOT???)

Waiting to meet Tinkerbell

On the Carousel

On Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride

They had been begging for popcorn all day!

It's a Small World!
(It was so hot by this point, and the park was so empty they were sending empty boats through this ride, if you can believe that! The A/C in there was absolutely heavenly!)

Luckily for you our camera ran out of batteries by this point, so you don't get pictures of Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Carribean or the Haunted Mansion. So, despite it being so dang hot that day, we really packed it in! To say it was amazing feels like an understatement! Seeing Disneyland again through the eyes of my kids, and even my hubby, who had never seen anything like this before, was just incredible. I swear that place is truly magical. We already can't wait to go back!

Of course, what's a trip to LA without a journey to the Alley? Oh man, I LOVE this place!!! This was the girls first time there, and they did pretty good! We went on a weekday so it wasn't so crazy crowded and busy as it was last time we came, but still some GREAT deals!

One thing we discovered - the ALLEY DOG. Man oh man - this is a MUST HAVE if you're ever there! How did we miss that the first time!?!

Seuao spent a good bit of time with some old friends building the "box" - the girls and I spent time at the mall, in the backyard and just hanging out. When the time came to ship off this box, we went to the shipyard and I was AMAZED at how big it was! And that thing was FULL. You couldn't have fit another tube of toothpaste in there if you tried! Off it went - set to arrive in Samoa in December, when Seuao is there to pick it up!

Once the box was out of the way, we spent some time driving down the Pacific Coast Highway. We wandered through Newport Beach a little bit, and played in the sand. Tess didn't want ANYTHING to do with the water, but Lily was in heaven! It was so relaxing - truly awesome!