It is all a blur!

Let's see, where did I leave off?

Thursday, September 30th.

It's my birthday!!!! When we went and got our free lanyard (super convenient for keeping our passes at the ready) they also gave me a pin that said Happy Birthday and my name on it. This meant I was a sitting duck for all Disney employees to shout "Happy Birthday Jen" at any moment. It was fun though and definitely made my day a bit more special! :) We started the morning at Denny's for a free breakfast...I couldn't pass up free food! Then we went straight into California Adventure to get Fast Passes for the World of Color show that evening. We had already played in California Adventure a bit, so we went back over to Disney. This is where things get fuzzy for me...we just did a lot of rides!! :) Brian and I did get to go on Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted house while my mom and Arne pushed Nolan around in the stroller and even bored him to sleep! It was awesome. My mom did introduce us to Mint Juleps (non-alcoholic of course!) Nolan greatly enjoyed eating all the cherries out of my drink though! :) Brian ventured off to Splash Mountain while I was sitting back with a Mint Julep and a sleeping Nolan. He left his cell with me and at one point I thought I had lost him for good because he had been gone an hour. I think that was the worst wait time the whole time we were there...and honestly that isn't that bad for Disney! At this point we went back to our hotel to drop Nolan off with my mom so Brian and I could go out to dinner alone for my birthday. We went to the House of Blues which was nice, but my tummy wasn't feeling all that well so the dinner was a bit of a bust. We walked around a bit enjoying the area, rode the monorail into Disneyland and rode the Buzz Lightyear ride that Nolan didn't want to go on. I kicked Brian's butt...maybe he let me win because it was my birthday. Next we met back up with my mom, Arne & Nolan outside California Adventure to go see World of Color. After waiting for what felt like FOREVER, the show started. It was a very cool show using water to project different images, along with colors and music...however it was very loud and scary for Nolan which made it not as fun for us (and he was tired). So after the show we were all happy to head home and pass out.

Friday, October 1st.

Again, a little fuzzy as to which rides we did because honestly we did so many. The lines were short and we could walk on many or wait at the most 20 minutes. We did eat lunch in Tomorrowland again (I will have dreams about that veggie sandwich in Tomorrowland!!!!). We convinced Nolan to go on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which he hated and made sure we knew how much he hated it. We felt bad. We searched for a cute hat for Nolan, but didn't find one that we could both agree on. He went on his favorite roller coaster again, actually went two times in a row. We caught the afternoon parade then did a bit more shopping before heading back to the hotel for a little nap time. Of course Nolan didn't nap, he just bounced off the walls. For dinner we went inside California Adventure and ate at a Mexican place (Mom and Arne got chowder from a seafood place) and we got a short tour of a tortilla factory. Mom, Arne & Brian went on a river rafting ride and Nolan and I played in the red wood forest...that was a LOT more work than I was expecting. Brian took over playing with Nolan in the red wood forest and I returned to the hotel room with the stroller. I got a lot of strange looks pushing a stroller without a kid in it! :)

Saturday, October 2nd.

We got up at 5 something in the morning to get our bags packed up and ready to go. We had one morning we could get into the park an hour early and decided to use it on our last day. We got to the gates around 7am and we LOVED it. The park was empty and we walked on to quite a few rides. We also saw a ton of people in red shirts and quickly learned it was Gay Days in the park. I kick myself now for not calling my mom & Arne and telling them it was special red shirt day! LOL We walked past Materhorn and noticed Nolan was tall enough to ride and the line was SOOOOO short, so the boys rode that. I am still shocked that Nolan did that! We tried to do Nolan's favorite roller coaster again but it was closed due to rain...so we went back to the French Quarter and Brian and I rode Pirates one last time, took Nolan on his last ride (Winnie the Pooh), grabbed our last treat (Churro & a Mint Julep) and waved goodbye with a ride on the Monorail. We had an AMAZING time in Disney...but after 5 crazy days we were ready to have a little down time. After checking out of the hotel we got on I-5 north and made our way to Pismo Beach. Once we checked into our hotel we went on a mission to find a grocery store and a Laundromat. Yes, we bought sandwiches and grapes and spent our evening hanging out doing laundry...but it was surprisingly fun.

Sunday, October 3rd

The hotel walls were VERY thin and Brian didn't get much sleep, but luckily Nolan and I snoozed away. Dawnette, Chris & Mason met us at our hotel and we followed them to a fun park (so Nolan could get some of his crazies out) then to Pismo Beach for the BEST clam chowder and a little playing in the sand. It really was a beautiful day and so fun to see friends and catch up! Around 2pm (just in time for Nolan to take a nap) we got back on the road and headed up highway 1 (listening to the advice of Dawnette & Chris). It was a breathtaking ride in more ways than one. The view was just amazing. We slowly climbed higher, but the water remained right next to us. You could see forever and no picture could properly capture how truly awesome it was. It also took the breath out of me with the CRAZY curves and had me slamming on my passenger side brake (I really wished I had one!!) quite a bit. Eventually the crazy windy road ended and deposited us right into Monterey. Our hotel in Monterey had me concerned. I had found it on Hotels.com for $40 a night. I expected it would come with bedbugs or paper thin walls. We arrived to the cutest little 20 room hotel with beautiful flowers everywhere and nice hotel staff. I breathed a sigh of relief thinking maybe we wouldn't be covered in bed bugs tonight and maybe we just found a good deal! We pulled up to the room and we were the ONLY car in the parking lot...score! The room was cute, had a microwave and fridge and NO bugs that I could see!! We ventured across the street to a little mall where we ate at Chipotle, but all the stores were closed for the day (darn Sunday). We picked up some muffins for the next day and headed back to our wonderful little hotel. By the end of the night there were like 5 cars in the parking lot, but it still felt like we had the place to ourselves.

Monday, October 4th

We started our day with yummy muffins we purchased the day before and decent in room coffee. Then we went back to the little mall for some shopping and seeing what we could see. Then we made our way down to Fisherman's Wharf for some more sight seeing, shopping and lunch. I was in heaven with inexpensive shops and beautiful jewelry. I even treated myself to a plumeria necklace for my birthday. We sampled chowder at various restaurants and got a free appetizer coupon for each one. We weighed the pros and cons of each restaurant before deciding on Isabella's. If I am ever on death row...I want their calamari for my last meal. I think I am salivating right now just thinking about it. Oh, and their bread dipped in oil & vinegar!!! Mmmmm...can you tell I finally feel better huh? Brian felt the same way about the restaurant though...we fell in love with Monterey over that meal! Unfortunately we had to leave Fisherman's Wharf behind (partly because our meter was about to run out) and head north towards Berkeley. We arrived around 3:30pm and chilled out for awhile before heading over to Adri, Spenser & Sam's house for dinner. Adri made a fantastic pasta dish and it was so nice to eat home cooking. The boys got to play together and even though Nolan cried every time Sam "roared" at him...Nolan had a great time and asked for more when we had to leave to go back to the hotel.

Ok...I have to put Nolan to bed...I'll finish up soon!!! Ya, I'll finish up soon turned into like 3 months later...ya, I rock at blogging. Let's see how I remember things...

Tuesday, October 5th
We enjoyed breakfast in the hotel (yes, I still remember all the food!!!!) and headed over to Adri's house. They were seriously amazing tour guides and took us on the BART under the bay and into San Francisco. I am positive if they weren't there, we would have been VERY, VERY lost!! We walked to the aquarium then to lunch. My plan was to have a sourdough bowl full of chowder...but pregnancy cravings made me get a tomato salad with balsamic that was FREAKING AWESOME (seriously, never let a preggo write a travel blog...it will end up 100% about food!). After lunch we walked over to this super cool arcade museum. We loaded up on quarters and let all the kids (including the husbands) run wild. It was fun! We also checked out the (stinky) sea lions on our walk back. Luckily the little boys were worn out and slept in their strollers on the way back. We found our way back to BART (with the help of Adri and Spenser of course!!!) and played at their house until it was time for dinner. We got some Thai takeout (another preggo craving) and then had to say goodbye to our friends and head back to our hotel for our last night in Berkeley.

Wednesday, October 6th
We started the day with another hotel breakfast bar (it was decent, but not our fav. We were rating hotels along the way...a good breakfast earned a hotel high ratings!) We said goodbye to the bay area and headed north to the Jelly Belly factory. Along the way we saw a sign that said 'Toll Ahead' at first I got worried because we had VERY little cash left, but then we saw a sign that said $2.50 and we found that exact amount and sighed a little sigh of relief. We stopped at the booth and the toll booth guy asked for $5! Awe, crud! We explained that we only had $2.50 but he didn't care and handed us a slip of paper and said that a $25 ticket would be mailed to us. AWESOME!!! So we continued onwards to the Jelly Belly factory, me 12 shades of pissed at myself. A minute or two later a cop was following us. Now I was 24 shades of pissed at myself because we just got a ticket, we didn't have current proof of insurance in the car (it was on the desk at home) and our tabs expired on September 30th (new tabs were also on the desk at home)! DOUBLE AWESOME!!! He followed us for quite some time, but then turned off and we were finally able to breathe. I was a huge grump though...but our trip to Jelly Belly cured that! We got a tour of how the candy was made, tasted some funky flavors, bought some souvenirs and even had a yummy lunch (I had a philly sandwich that was super yumtastic). We got back in the car and decided to drive until we just couldn't drive anymore. We ended up in Medford, OR. We sat in Jack-in-the-Box and used Brian's phone to look up local hotels...our one stipulation is that it MUST have an indoor pool because we had yet to put our toe in a pool! All in all, this hotel rated highest on our trip. The room was nice and large, the toiletries were yummy smelling, the pool was AWESOME (even had a little kiddie pool, but Nolan preferred the big one. And we had it 100% to ourselves) and at breakfast they had WAFFLES!!!!!

Thursday, October 7th
So the morning started out with our best breakfast of the trip...yummy waffles and all the other things that came along with a hotel breakfast. Nolan was the entertainment for the meal, continually singing "ensie wensie spider". One lady even clapped for him and said "I'm sure that's the way Justin Timberlake started!" hahaha
We hit I-5 for our LAST day. We were all sad that the trip was coming to an end...but we were happy to get back in Washington and relax a little! Our trip was something that we will never forget...and we hope through telling stories and showing pictures, Nolan never forgets either! Thanks for going on our journey with us!

THE END!!