Our Spring Break Trip to Disneyland!!

Ok, so here's how this one went down. I knew that my family had Spring Break coming up in April and I knew they decided the week before that they would take a trip to Disneyland. I didn't even consider going because, first of all, I wasn't going to invite myself, I assumed that Dave had to work, I had just gone to Maryland 3 weeks before, etc.

So Easter Sunday afternoon, the afternoon they were planning on leaving, we went over for dinner/lunch and to see them off. Somewhere in our conversation they (kind of jokingly) invited us to come, and Dave was like, "Sure, let's go!" To my surprise, he was serious! Dave and I talked about it for a while and decided that this actually would be a good time to go with his work, with most of the kids I teach lessons to leaving for Spring Break, and with the weather forecast predicting snow in Utah and Sunshine in Cali that week. Also, we were planning to do some sort of family vacation this summer before I got too pregnant to enjoy anything. I was thinking maybe the beginning of June, but the thought of going on vacation 5 months pregnant instead of almost 7 also sounded like a good reason to take that family vacation now! So we did! We went home and packed and started for Cali that evening. Dave got the official Kocherhans family trip experience since we all rode together in my parent's Yukon to save a little $$.

Chelsea, my Mom and I getting ready to start our long drive in the back seat of the Yukon. It'd been a while since I had a car trip with my family, but you can tell by the look on my face that I hadn't forgotten what those car trips were like. Dun dun dun!!!

We stayed in Mesquite for a couple nights to break up the trip a little bit. Here are my siblings and Jesse spending some time by the pool. We also went bowling with Jesse while in Mesquite and he loved it! We explained to him that you had to take turns and he actually was really good about waiting for his turn. He did ask after everyone finished their turn if it was his turn again, so he was very anxious, but he just waiting patiently when I told him it wasn't his turn yet. No matter how many pins he knocked down, or how long it took the ball to get to the pins, he a;ways turned and ran back to give us all high fives.

How you doing!?

Then we finally made it to the happiest place on earth.

I wasn't quite sure of Jesse's reaction as we first entered the park and were walking to our first ride. He was just wide-eyed taking in the massive amount of people everywhere and the very visually stimulating surroundings. This was pretty much his reaction on all of the rides as well. I wasn't sure if he was enjoying the ride until it was over and he was asking for "more." Unfortunately it's hard to explain to a 2-year old why he can't have "more" ride so most of the rides ended with us pulling him away in tears. He did enjoy Disneyland though, for the most part. Some of Jesse's favorites were seeing Mickey Mouse, and riding the train that goes around the park, the carosel (this was the only ride with no line that Jesse could stay on and ride over and over again), the cars, the Winnie the Pooh ride, and the "Nemo" submarine ride. He also really enjoyed staying up late to watch the fireworks! This was pretty much his first time seeing fireworks since he's been too little to remember or asleep when we've watched fireworks before.

Grandma and Jesse waiting to go on the Caterpillar train ride.

It took about 10 trys to finally get a picture where he was smiling and looking at me.

Most of the other pictures turned out like this. What a silly goof!

Daddy and Jesse driving their car. One of Jesse's favorites.
Jesse was just tall enough to ride the Matterhorn. He had fun sitting with Daddy.

I wasn't sure what I would feel comfortable riding 5 months pregnant. I could pretty much still hide that fact that I was pregnant and I at least knew that nobody would have the guts to question me about whether I was or not. Of course my favorite rides at Disneyland are the ones that said that pregnant women shouldn't ride like Indiana Jones, Splash Mountain, the Tower of Terror, and my all-time favorite Space Mountain. Call me careless but I ended up going on everything but the roller coaster at California adventure. I just really didn't feel like anything else was remotely dangerous to my baby. I'm sure I jostle him a lot more on my runs. Anyway, I'm feeling him do a gymnastics routine inside of me right now so I'm thinking that no harm was done in riding the rides at Disneyland.

We spent half a day at Newport beach one of the days. It was warm weather but the water was freezing so we didn't do much more than dip our toes in. At least we got some sun. This was Jesse's first time to the beach and seeing the ocean. He loved it!! He loved running to and from the waves and splashing in the water. He also had a fun time shoveling sand ito his bucket and driving his boat in the sand. I wish we lived closer to a beach!

Jesse and Grandpa playing in the water.My super cute bros and sis at Newport beach.

Dave and I got to drive out to see his sister Julie in Redlands one afternoon. We unfortunately, only had time to stop in, say hi, and visit for a little bit. We wished we could have hung out with them a little longer. Julie and her husband Matthew have a daughter (Bridget) who's 19 mos and who Jesse hardly ever gets to see, so it was fun for them to get to play together for a little bit. Julie actually was due to have another baby girl (Whitney) any day while we were there (and has since we left). I'm excited to meet little Whitney when they come to visit in June! I'm kicking myself that we didn't get a picture while we were there.

The week went by almost as fast as we decided to come but it was a ton of fun!