The Trip - Part 1

We have been home from our trip for a week now and this is the first night that I have had the time or energy to transfer pictures from the camera to the computer and write this blog. Needless to say it has taken some time to get back into things. But, our trip to California and Arizona was fun (well...most of it) and it was WONDERFUL to be in the sun.

Instead of trying to write about our whole trip in one blog, I thought it would be better to split it up so it won't be so long. So...This blog entry will be part 1 of 2...our trip to California, Disneyland, and getting to see Daddy!

Mom and I both ended up with conferences for work during the same week. Hers started on Sunday in Anaheim and mine didn't start till Monday evening in Arizona. So...Ari and I flew down to Cali on that Saturday, stayed with my Mom till Monday at her hotel (right across from Disney), then flew to Arizona on Monday afternoon.

We woke up on Saturday morning at 3:30am to make our flight down to LA at 6:30. I scheduled my flight through work and of course I didn't pay attention to the actual kind of airplane that we would be on. We flew a Delta "Express Jet", which apparently means THE TINIEST AIRPLANE EVER FLOWN BY MAN. It had one seat on one side of the aisle, and two on the other. I had one of the "one" seater rows, which would have been somewhat bearable, but they wouldn't let me sit there with Aria because it didn't have two oxygen masks. I got re-assigned to a window seat. I couldn't even begin to stand up straight in this plane, and with Aria and our giant diaper bag (filled with every kind of distraction toy and snack that I could think of), the feelings of claustrophobia began to set in. I was praying that the seat next to me wouldn't be occupied, but of course every seat on the micro plane was full. Thankfully the man next to me liked kids. Phew. We got seated and I quickly realized that this seat was much smaller than the seats on a normal human airplane. The combination of being six feet tall and holding an over-sized 1.5 year old on my lap wasn't a great combo. And to add to it all...the heat was on. Blowing strongly on our feet. Even after we took off it stayed on. Aria did good for the first 45 minutes because she got to play with all the buttons and try to figure things out. Then we both started getting a little stir crazy. Numerous passengers asked the flight attendant to turn the heat down and she kept trying to tell us that the heat wasn't on. But for some reason it still was blowing on our legs. The man behind me took off his shirt half way through the flight because he got so hot and annoyed. I could write a whole blog just about this flight, but I will cut it off and just say it was the longest two and a half hours of my life.

I met up with Mom at LAX and after fighting and wrestling with Aria through one of those tantrums where you feel like every person in the ENTIRE world is staring at you and judging your parenting skills (all because I wouldn't let her run wild in the airport) we managed to get our bags and catch a shuttle to get our rental car. We get to Enterprise and there are about 50 people in line. It took us over an hour to get our car, and they brought me a carseat to use that was completely laced wrong and twisted. When I tried to explain this to the woman helping us, she told me that I just needed to put the seatbelt through the carseat and click it in. Wow..really? I didn't know that. By this time Aria had lost it from being so tired and hot, so I just strapped it in as best I could so we could get out of there. We had planned on going to Disneyland that day, but by the time we got to the hotel and Aria had taken a nap it was already late. We did go in the hotel pool, which she absolutely loved. That evening we went over and ate dinner and watched the Bee Movie with Deonta. Aria was excited to see her Daddy and it was really fun. Wow...only day one.

We woke up Sunday and ate breakfast, then caught a trolley to Disneyland. We heard it was going to be hot that day, but of course the one day that we decide to go it ends up being a record high 102 degrees in Anaheim. I was really excited for Aria to see the Disney characters since that is her favorite cartoon, but it got SOOOOO hot. We did one boat ride, let her play around in toon town, and she saw Minnie, Pluto, Pooh and Tinkerbell. After three hours we were done. Aria's cheeks were beaming red, and I was worried about us all getting heat exhaustion. She loved it there, she talked nonstop and was just fascinated looking at everything. I was kind of bummed that we couldn't spend the whole day there, but it just got too hot. I can't wait to go again and I will be sure to try and plan a day that is a record high!

After a nap, we got ready and met up with Deonta again. We drove out to Long Beach and Aria got to visit with her Grandma Ragina and Auntie's Janae and Janelle. She was a little hesitant as I expected, but she did really well with all of them. Overall it was a great visit.

Here are pictures from part 1 of the trip. (don't worry the next part is much more relaxing and stress free).

Aria all ready for the pool

She had a smile on her face the whole time!

Having fun with Mommy. She didn't want me to hold her or help her kick and swim, so we swallowed a lot of water!

The hottest, I mean the happiest place on earth!

At "Mimi Moush Housh," as she called it

Tired Moush

Eating one of her favorite foods, a "frefri"(french-fry)

The scowl...papa taught her this face, and she has been doing it ever since she was a baby!

Phew...stay tuned for Part 2 soon.