Vacation Part IV: Sea World in San Diego

This summer has been so hectic for our family.  It seems we never slow down!  Here is the final blog post from our California vacation!  (Still two more vacations to cover, plus Ella's 4th birthday!)

By this day in the trip I was exhausted, so my pictures are a little lacking.  As I was searching through the pictures I realized I didn't even take a picture of Shamoo at the show.  Seriously...?? I was one of Ella's favorite things I didn't even snap a single picture of the damn whale! In these pictures you will see Haley and not Megan.  Megan had to work on the day we went to Sea World, but Aunt Buck was able to make the trip.

Here is our day at Sea World in pictures:

There are some pretty neat kid's rides (and adult too) at Sea World.  We rode all of the rides the kids could go on and saw 3-4 shows at Sea World all in one day.  It was a long day--we left from Glendale early in the morning and made the almost 3 hour each way trip in one day.  It was exhausting, but the girls slept in the car both ways so that was helpful.  The whole family had a blast at Sea World and we look forward to going back soon!

Vacation Part III: California Adventure

I told my husband that I liked California Adventure more than Disneyland and he thought I was crazy!  But seriously, California Adventure is awesome and if you are going to Disneyland I would highly recommend heading into California Adventure as well.  It's literally right next to Disneyland and hopping over from Disneyland is a really quick process.

My sister in law Megan and my in laws joined us at California Adventure. Haley had class that day so she wasn't able to go.  The park was much less crowded than Disneyland so we could ride the rides much faster and get to many more attractions in the time we were there.  My favorite ride was the Toy Story Ride--hands down!  It was so amazing!  If the line wasn't so long we would have ridden it again and again.  Ella loved it.  It was in 4-D and was absolutely amazing!  We also saw a very cool night time water show!

Here are some pictures of our time at California Adventure:

They have the cutest Disney Junior show at California Adventure.  It featured all of Ella's favorite shows like Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Doc McStuffins and Sophia the First.  She had a blast at this show and I'm so glad we caught it while we were there. 

In a Bug's Life Land...so cool!

While we were at California Adventure we did a  character lunch with the princess.  It was very pricey--$42.99 per person, lucky both girls were free, but the food was ahhhmazing.  The best part of the lunch was that the princess came around and visited each table.  I was able to get a picture of Ella with all of her favorite princess.  This was hands down the best think we did on vacation.  Ella LOVED it!!  Well worth the money...we thought.  I know they have character breakfasts at Disney World and this is very similar to that at Disneyland.

Belle is Ella's favorite princess--she was so excited to see her!

So many cool rides in Cars Land

Me with my sis in law, Meg.

Mia and Aunt Mimi

Sean won this gigantic wiener dog playing a carnival game.  He always wins at those games!  And we only had to spend $10 to get it!!  The real test came when we had to stuff the dog in our suitcases to get him home.  

So cute playing dress up in the gift shop!

Getting ready to board my favorite ride--Toy Story 4-D

Crazy kids!

One tip I learned from a season pass holder was to download the app for Disneyland and California Adventure wait times.  It was so awesome to just look at my phone and know how long the lines were.  It saved us so much time from walking around to different rides.  I highly recommend searching the app store for this free app.  It was a life saver!

We had a blast at California Adventure!  They have a unique set up with different "lands" and it's much less crowded...definitely my favorite day of the trip!

Vacation Part II: The Happiest Place on Earth

Since our California vacation extended for an entire week and we did soooo many things during the week, I think I will break this up into three parts: Disneyland, California Adventure and Sea World.  That way the post doesn't get crazy long!

First up is Disneyland.

We made the 4ish hour drive from Vegas to Glendale (where my sis in laws live) on Sunday night.  Once we arrived we were pooped and pretty much went to bed.  We had a big day the next day planned for Disneyland.  We spent a total of two days at Disneyland, one at California Adventure and one at Sea World in San Diego.  As we were budgeting for our vacation we knew we wanted to buy a three day park hopper, but after looking into it we learned it was pretty darn expensive.  Ella is no longer free at the parks since she's 3.  That means 3 tickets for our family, which can get pretty pricey!  Before we left we did a little research and found out that you can buy discounted park tickets through Costco, so we looked into and it ended up not being exactly what we were looking for.  So I did some more internet research and found a California City Pass.  They have these City Passes for a ton of different cities that offer admission to the most popular attractions in that particular city.  The California City Pass included a three day park hopper to Disneyland Parks (including California Adventure) and one day pass to Sea World  and a one day pass to Universal Studios.  We knew we wouldn't be able to make it to Universal (the kids are too small for that anyway), but it was still definitely worth the money. Much cheaper than buying everything separately.  So that is the route we took to purchase our tickets.  If you google City Passes your should be able to find a list of cities that offer these types of passes.  Pretty cool if you ask me!

Here are our two days at Disneyland in pictures:

For those of you that have been to either of the Disney parks you know they have a daily parade of characters through the park.  We caught the parade both days we were there and it was fantasia each time.  Both girls were memorized by the dancing characters.  

Riding the Finding Nemo Ride--Mia loved looking through the submarine window at the characters in the water!  She didn't budge off of my lap!

Grandma hanging out with the little kids so the big kids could ride the Indiana Jones ride!  Ella passed out during the fireworks show!  

Flying Dumb Bo's

Looking so innocent...after a ginormous tantrum/meltdown

Riding the train--we picked the caged in train car because at this point in the day Mia was acting crazy and we felt like we should cage her in to keep her contained! :)

At Mickey's House

Ella's Driver's License from Autopia! Crazy girl--her daddy helped her pose like this!

Another fun Toy Story Ride with Buzz

Riding under the sea on the Finding Nemo Ride

Riding Autopia with my love...he was not a great driver!  

Mia's face cracks me up...she loved the Tea Cups.

Too bad I forgot to take a  before picture.  I'm terrible at taking food pictures!  This  was the most delicious hot fudge sundae I've ever had.  It came with a warm cookie on top!  Heaven!

Ella was terrified of any ride that went into the dark.  Didn't matter if the ride was a happy ride or not, she was not having it.   This was her face after the ride!  By the end of the second day, she overcame her fear and was riding all of the rides, though.

My advice when planning a trip to Disneyland:

• If you can afford to, buy a multiple day park pass--This is an especially good deal if you are going with small children because you don't feel like you have to make yourself (and your kids) crazy by getting to every attraction in one day!  It is almost impossible to get to everything in one day! We went for one full day and one half day to Disneyland and felt that was a good amount of time.  On the full day Mia napped in the stroller and on the half day she was able to get a pretty good nap in before we left.  Ella is phasing out her naps, but the extra rest was good for her and her mama!  :)

• Bring food with you--They are pretty lenient about checking coolers, etc especially if you have a baby, and allowed us to bring PB&J's with us.  These were great snacks or meals for the girls.We were waiting in a super long line right about dinner time  and we obviously weren't getting out of line, so having those sandwiches were a life saver in line for the girls to eat, plus it kept them both occupied for a good 10 minutes of boring line waiting time!  I brought a bunch of other snacky type foods as well and they were great for Mia to snack on while waiting in line.  Not to mention that we bought them less food at dinner because they had already eaten, so it saved us a little cash as well!

• Bring a sweatshirt or light jacket with you--Believe it or not, it gets pretty chilly in Anaheim at night.  I was glad I had the the sweatshirts for me and the girls.  They were freezing when the sun went down! 

• Have fun and go with the flow--Yes there are rude people sometimes and the lines can be long (unless you utilize the fast pass-genius) but it really is the most magical place on earth and if you remember that you will have a blast!

Ella is the perfect age for Disneyland and loved all of the "fantasy" and characters.  She truly believes in all of it so she had a wonderful time.  I would definitely recommend it for girls her age.  Mia did pretty well considering the circumstances she was faced with...random naps and eating, extreme exhaustion from a couple of late nights and not sleeping in her own bed.  Waiting in line was tough for Mia as she was bored easily and wanted to run around.  Luckily, we had our entire family there to entertain her while we waited in line.  We just passed her around from person to person to entertain her.  The weather was beautiful while we were there in early June and I would recommend this time of year for the great weather alone....but come to think of it isn't weather in CA great all the time??  We look forward to going to Disneyland many more times while Aunt Buck and Aunt Mimi live there!  I'm already envisioning a spring break trip next year :)  

Vacation Part I- Las Vegas

I've decided to try something a little bit different on the blog.  I want to add a daily section dedicated to my workouts and maybe even a weekly workout schedule...or at least a goal of what I would like to accomplish workout wise in a given week.  It is my hope this will keep me more organized with my workouts (right now I just head out for a run or down to the basement and decide my workout on the go) and keep me accountable.  We shall see if this actually works out for me.  Since the name of my blog is Somewhere In Between, I feel that I could do a better job of incorporating multiple things on the blog...not just all pictures of my family! :)  Although, there will still be plenty of family pictures fo' sho'!  So here we go:

Today's Workout:
Week 3 of The Fitnessista's Summer Shape Up.  She has a wonderful blog, and if you signed up for the Summer Shape up she send meals and workouts weekly!  It's awesome.  Since I'm now in the market for organized workout targeting specific areas of my body I thought her Summer Shape up was a good place to start.  The workout basically consisted of two rounds of a circuit, a little speed cardio and abs to finish it off.  I must admit after taking a full 8 days off of working out I was feeling it today during this workout.  I even had to walk once during the cardio--WTF??--I despise walking in a workout that doesn't actually call for walking!  Boo on that one!  I'm hoping tomorrow I will start to get back into the groove of working out again...I ended up doing about 30 minutes of cardio which resulted in a bit over 3.1 miles...and I was huffing.  Amazing what a week will do!

This is what I'm thinking about for the rest of the week:
Tues.-Steady state cardio outside; maybe 4 miles
Wed.-25- 30 minutes of HIIT cardio and the same Week 3 circuit I completed today
Thurs.-Steady state cardio outside; maybe 4-5 miles
Fri.-We are heading to the lake for the weekend and I"m hoping to get a workout in at the hotel today.
Sat. and Sun.-Off because we're at the lake

Now onto the good stuff...Our vacation pictures.  I'm going to recap most of our vacation in pictures instead of writing because...well...pictures are way more interesting than writing!  So here goes...
We flew into Las Vegas on Friday night and met Sean's sister's there (they drove in from LA) to celebrate Sean's youngest sister Haley's 21st birthday!  It was so fun, but boy was it hot!  I think it was well over a hundred both days we were there.

 Tasting coke from around the world at the coke store

My favorite coke product--it tasted like a Pina Colada!

We stayed at the New York New York Hotel and it was awesome!  Sean bid for it on Price line and we ended up getting a pretty good deal for the two nights we were there! We spent most of Saturday at the pool and then headed out for a classic Vegas buffet dinner at the MGM Grand Hotel.  Sean gambled...ALOT...and I had a couple of drinks and we hung out. Sean's parents and sisters were there so we had an abundance of babysitters, so we were able to take turns hanging out in the casino and in the room.  Overall the weekend was a blast and I'm glad we were able to celebrate with Haley.  On Sunday we ate lunch at this cute little Mexican place inside Caesar's Palace and then hit the road for Los Angeles.  It took us just over 4 hours to drive from Vegas to LA and the scenery wasn't that great...I must admit I was a little disappointed.  We were tired and relived when we finally arrived at Sean's sister's apartment.  The girls did great traveling in the car, though, Mia sleeping and Ella playing on the Ipad.  Boy that thing is a life saver!  Although, it didn't work on the plane very well because we had to put the Ipad in airplane mode which wouldn't allow us to access our cellular data, so we paid $8 for Wi-Fi through Southwest, and we couldn't get on any sites to load.  It was a terrible signal and took forever to connect to anything!  I was highly disappointed and so was Ella-- a total waste of $8!  That's basically the weekend in Vegas in a nutshell...next up our week long adventure in California at Disneyland and Sea World in San Diego!  Get ready it's exhausting!