Disneyland Day #5

Emma and her cousin Jill on the shuttle and looking for rocks at the airport


Our last day of vacation....and we weren't even going to Disneyland. That morning we had to be packed up and ready to catch our shuttle by 8:30am. As we were loading all of our gear, my father-in-law handed me a charm that had fallen out when he had folded our stroller. Unintentionally, I had stolen it! When we had been shopping the night before I had it in my hand until I went to pay. When I got there it was gone and while Nick looked through the stroller I had picked up another one. I guess it had fallen in some crevice we couldn't see. So if anyone would like a Minnie Mouse silver charm for a bracelet or necklace--let me know!! The airport ride was exciting since it looked like rush hour on each of the 3 freeways we drove on. Then, as we were checking our bags, we had the "Long Beach Airport Nazi" questioning our relationship to Brielle (since we didn't have her birth certificate). He said the SLC Airport had made a mistake in allowing her to board without one. Feeling embarrassed and angry, I found her immunization record in our diaper bag only to have the interrogator point out that it didn't have her date of birth on it, so he couldn't accept it. Obviously, he let us go after he recited the FAA guidelines to us (good idea, since we fly so often!) Next, my brother-in-law was stopped as he was going through security because their son didn't have a boarding pass; plus when he came back through they individually scanned him. We thought that they were going to miss the flight. So finally we are taking off when Brielle starts to cry and nothing that we give her will make her happy. It was like screaming in the middle of church because the whole plane was totally quiet. I finally stood up and walked to the back of the plane so she could look at other things and that seemed to help (I just got in the way of the stewardess' delivering snacks). Of course when we landed in Salt Lake that was not the end of the journey. We had to collect luggage (our strollers came out in a different baggage claim), wait for the guys to go pick up our vans (Nick bypassed us the first time around--tried to reverse--got yelled at by airport parking security--had to make the loop again) and then change Brielle's messy diaper in the van before we left. I was so tired of traveling!! We left the airport at 3:00 and needed lunch so by the time we had gone through a drive-thru and arrived home it was almost 4:30. The rest of the night was a blur as I tried to unpack, go get milk at the store, bath the girls, and get ready for the next day--back to regular life. Total traveling time: 8 hours!
All in all, it was a wonderful trip with a lot of fun memories. I would do it again, with a few changes (later flights, more days at Disneyland to spread things out, older children). And hopefully we will be able to get back there in a few years. There are some other places I would like to take my kids to......just not anytime soon. We have had enough traveling for awhile!