Disneyland Character: Mom

My mom was gracious enough to come along with us to help out with the kids. She is such an easy, fun grandma (Mimi) that we knew it would be fun. She prepared a lot of fun activities for the kids to do in during the LONG car ride. Thankfully the kids did great and enjoyed what she brought :) 

She had stuff color coordinated for each kid according to their interests. Mason and Kaiah played the same Pass the Pigs game that my siblings and I played as kids. Cambria had a dry erase board with princesses on it, and Lochlan played with beanie baby dragons and cars while we all listened to hours of Adventures in Odyssey and music and talked in-between rest stop visits and naps. 

I was surprised at the number of people that told me we should watch tons of movies during the drive. They even wanted to lend us portable DVD players. But Cliff and I really value teaching the kids to deal with boredom with creativity and imagination. They played Bendaroos for HOURS and made houses and animals and laughed and laughed. I'm loving watching these kids develop an ever-deeper friendship :)

Mom and I enjoyed trying to guess which kind of crop we were passing throughout the miles and miles of California farmland.

We passed a lot of wineries, almond crops, oranges, cherries, lemons, etc... We also had fun trying to identify new birds... though we didn't bring our book so we just got fun pictures.

And Cliff, well I'm not sure what he was so happy about... maybe it was Mount Shasta because he really loves mountains...

Anyways, back to my mom. She was great, however, there was a bit of a communication breakdown. For weeks now she had been telling her friends that she was coming to help take care of the younger ones and ride all the younger kid rides while we left to enjoy the rest of the park unhindered. She thought it sounded like fun... we were mortified! She couldn't believe her luck that we would all be traveling together in a pack enjoying both parks together :) Oh dear, sweet mom.

 

She was having such a grande time when it all turned south. I convinced her to ride on the biggest roller coaster ride "so she could say she did it". With tears in her eyes she reluctantly got on. I was sitting in front of her and all I could hear behind me was screaming... continuous screaming. When we pulled in everyone got out and the next group was all loaded in while mom was still sitting in her seat pale and green and saying, "huh!" in a state of semi-shock. I had to get back in the roller coaster and pull her out with both arms! Kaiah said, "Mimi! Wasn't the music awesome?" to which Mimi said. "There was music?" She didn't like the ride... :) I didn't push it anymore. But was VERY surprised at how easy it was for Cliff to talk her into doing the Tower of Terror the next day. He made it seem like a really fun ride that had a scary story to go along with it.... and it started out in a library! So she did it. It wasn't quite as bad as California Screamin' but she didn't feel the need to go again :)

 

Mimi even watched the kids for us one evening while we went out on a date with just the two of us. While the other kids were watching episodes of Wipeout on the computer...  Lochlan, despite my mom's best efforts stayed right by the door with his little blanket and just whimpered and waited... I guess we haven't left him in a while! 

Thanks Mom! You were a lot of fun and help. We're so glad you could come!