Aotearoa

Aotearoa = Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand)

Gough Family Vacation -the rest of it.

Friday was was a pretty calm day -pool time and recovering from our long day at Disneyland.  Lisa and Dave offered to watch the kids while we went out to dinner, so we went out to Sushi.  Saturday we cleaned up and packed.  We headed out for Las Vegas around 11 and stopped for lunch about an hour later before driving through the Mojave desert again.  We had to make a lot more stops on that leg of the trip -potty breaks and to stretch our legs, but we finally made it to Las Vegas.  We stayed in a really nice (and big) condo.  It was cold and rainy when we arrived, so we didn't go to the pool, but there was a hot top in our room that entertained our kids for a bit.

While Justin and Hyrum ran to get something for dinner Kate tripped next to one of the end tables and fell into one of the handles -with her nose.  I was worried it was broken, but there was no blood, she didn't seem super bothered by it after the initial hit, and there really isn't much they can do for a broken nose anyway, so we didn't take her in.  I thought she'd have two black eyes the next morning, but she didn't -so hopefully that means it didn't break after all.

We got probably the best night of sleep of the whole trip -I actually woke up around 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep for a bit.  My body must have been used to getting up sometime during the night.  We left for Salt Lake as soon as we could get out of the door that next morning -around 7:30.

We had to stop about 3 times (between Hyrum and his cousins needing to stop) in the first 3 hours or so... but then made pretty good time -considering we drove through a white-out for an hour or two.

It was sure nice to be home -I think Kate might have been the most excited out of all of us.  I normally wouldn't have had too much laundry to do either (since normally I do part of it at the condo before we leave) but since we weren't sure what caused (and possibly caught a ride home with us) Justin's itching -I had to wash everything again.  I think I'm finally done with laundry.  About the same time I'm done with this post!

Gough Family Vacation -Disneyland

Our day pretty much started at 2:30 am with Justin in the ER, but we were determined to have fun in Disneyland.  Our plan was to leave at 7am, and by 7:30 we were on the road along with Dusty and Shondel.   Dave and Lisa followed an hour or so later, Kris and Marime got an even later start.  We were pretty much at the gate by 10 am, which is what we were hoping for.  

As soon as we walked in we saw a few characters.  We opted to not stand in the line for Mickey or Minnie, so Hyrum got Pluto.  He was still pretty impressed.  

Our first ride was Laila's favorite -It's a Small World.  All the kids loved it.  

Even Kate was pretty in love with the ride.  It was the last time she was happy for most of the day.  

After the first ride we noticed that Toon Town was opening in 15 minutes.  So we waited.  With a lot of other people.  That was quite a scene, when they opened the doors.  Kind of like day after Thanksgiving scene.  Maybe not quite that bad, but people were running!  We headed straight for Mickey's house and got in after just a minute or two wait.  

Hyrum and Kate both liked exploring Mickey's house.  On a more optimal trip (more than 1 day) I'm sure a 3 and 1 year old could spend the better part of a day here.  

 

First roller coaster.  

 These are the only group shots we got.  -Notice the cool shirts Shondel made all the kids.

 We never did get a picture with Kris and Marime.  It's pretty tough with a 3 month old in the park.

 Hyrum liked all of the 'boat' rides -including the Jungle Cruise.  This was another rare occasion where Kate enjoyed herself.  I don't even want to talk about Pirates of the Caribbean.

Hyrum finally crashed (in our rented stroller) when we walked over to get dinner.  He said his favorite rides were the boat rides and 'shooting Zurg'.  We also went on the Dumbo ride and Autotopia, he went on the Carousel with Papa.  He was definitely still recovering from being sick the day before -pretty tired, pale, and a bit ornery.  But he enjoyed himself and it was fun watching him during the day.  

The last ride was the train that went around the park.  The driver came and talked to us while were waiting to leave the station and gave Hyrum a special post card of the train.  We stayed for the parade (no fireworks that night) and drove the 2 hours home.  It was quite a long day but it was a lot of fun.  

Gough Family Vacation 2012 (part 2)

The rest of Sunday was rather uneventful, a good dinner and some time in the pool.  The kids slept pretty good at the Palm Desert condo's.  Kate is a LOUD sleeper -especially when she's a little sick, which she was.  And, I am a very LIGHT sleeper, so a few nights we stuck her bed in the bathroom.  It worked some of the time.  We just had one really bad night with her, the last night in Palm Desert.  I have no idea what was wrong, but she seriously cried/screamed from about 1:30 am until sometime between 4:30 or 5 am.  And then Hyrum woke us all up at 6!  Luckily she did great at our place in Las Vegas on the way home, and she's been sleeping great at home.  She must just be a little homebody when it comes to sleep.

I should have kept better track of what we did each day!  I think Monday was mostly a hang out at the condo's and swim.  Hyrum loved the pools, and we got him some water wings when we got there, which he did great with.  Kate seemed to like it -in her little floating boat, but wasn't too ecstatic.  She might be like her mom, not really a water girl.  

Tuesday we went to The Living Desert zoo.  The highlights were this awesome little model train village, that I didn't even get a picture of or let Hyrum look too long.  We were in a hurry to get in line to feed one of the giraffe's and had planned to go back.  By the time we made it back around, we were all too tired and hungry to go back!  Oops.  Feeding the giraffe's was fun, which the 3 older kids did.  They have LONG tongues!  It also had a fun playground that the kids liked too.  There was also a petting area, which Hyrum loved until one of the goats hit him with his horns.  

We had a delicious steak dinner on Tuesday -for Valentines day.  We mostly ate in, Dave and Lisa doing most (all) of the cooking, but we did go out a few times.  It was a lot more relaxing to be at home and easier with the kids for sure!  

Wednesday was a sick day for the Lafeen's.  It was scheduled to rain, (originally it was going to be Disneyland, but it was raining in Anaheim too), so it was a good day to be sick, I guess.  They both had fevers and were pretty ornery.  Luckily, they were over the worst of it by Wednesday night and were just a bit tired and wiped out for the next day.

Speaking of Wednesday night... Justin didn't want to be overshadowed by the kids this trip, so he decided to have a little issue of his own.  Some kind of bug down there did not like him very much, and his skin felt likewise.  He had, what we assumed, were bug bites all over his body.  The weird thing, he was the only one who seemed affected -out of the 4 of our, and everyone else there.  I neglected to think that buying some benadryl might at the very least put a bandaid on the situation.  So, at 2:30 am he woke me up and asked what he should do.  Every inch of his body was red, and he was starting to get white welts and swollen all over too.

If we weren't planning on leaving for Anaheim at 7am the next morning I would have said just suffer through the night and go to an urgent care.  But, since we needed to leave so early, he drove himself to the ER.  It seemed to be going okay, but they wanted to give him a shot of Benadryl, and (obviously) wouldn't give it to him until he had a ride home -since it makes you so drowsy.  It was 3:30 am.  I tried to get him to take a cab, but it would have been pretty expensive and then we'd have to drive back and get the car anyway.  So... he started calling cell phones.  We tried Dave and Lisa, since they were the only ones without kids and would wake up the fewest people.  Instead, I think we ended up waking up all 4 condo's.  Shondel responded to his text, and she said she'd drive me to the hospital, but we needed someone to stay with the kids.  I knocked on the door of Kris and Marime's condo for 6 or 7 minutes (they were the ones right next to us) with no luck.  We finally got Kris' cell phone and woke them up that way.  I left the doors open between the two rooms while I was gone.

I got to the ER, they gave him a shot, and we were on our way home. Back to sleep around 5 and up at 6.  It was a LONG day!