Surprise! We're off to Disneyland- October 7-9, 2007

We decided VERY last minute to surprise our kids with a trip to Disneyland for Fall Break. We got a cheap price for a nice hotel and it included park hopper tickets for 3 days. So Sunday morning, we woke the kids up at 5am (with the car already packed with their clothes, etc..) and told them we had a surprise so they needed to get dressed and get in the car. They were too tired to argue. We didn't tell them how long we would be in the car. After about 4 hours they figured out we were heading to California. At one point one of them mentioned Disneyland, and then one of the other kids reminded him that Disneyland was too expensive and we weren't going there! They figured we were going to Balboa and the Beach, and so we let them just keep thinking. We checked into the hotel, which had a shuttle service to Disneyland. We were close enough to Disneyland that their were banners on the streets, hotels, pretty much everywhere you looked. Lonny and I were cracking up, because the kids had no clue. We literally got off the shuttle in the parking lot between California Adventures and Disneyland, and they still had no clue. We got our tickets at will call, and they were still asking. A worker walked by and I said for them to ask her where we were. The worker looked at them and me smiling, and she said "You're at the happiest place on earth" Which really wasn't any help. We walked past the ticket counter and they saw the entrance to Disneyland and said, are we at Disneyland? Almost scared to ask, we had them so convinced there was no way! We shook our heads yes and they started jumping up and down. It was so fun for Lonny and I to see their excitement, it was worth the million quesses the whole way there! Some of the highlights of the 3 days we were there...

-Our kids were big enough to do most of the rides. Bobo couldn't do as many, but he really didn't care as long as he got a cotton candy instead.
-They all got picked to participate in a story telling with Jasmine and her Prince and then got pictures afterwards with them.
-They all got picked for Jedi Training, which they loved. Brig and Kaitlyn got to fight Darth Vader and Macy got to fight Darth Mal (have no idea how to spell that).
-The 2nd night, the boys were tired, so me and the girls stayed by ourselves and ventured over to California Adventures for the first time. We only had time to do California Screaming- which we all loved.
-We loved California Adventures and will spend more time there the next time we go!
-Lost Bobo for 45 minutes, the longest 45 minutes of my life. He wandered during lunch, we were eating by a play area and the kids were done eating, so they went to play while Lonny and I continued eating. We got distracted by the "Year of a Million Dreams" people passing out Dreams lanyards for everyone. Bobo refused to come and get one, so we only got 5- which was enough for all our children, so we were OK with that. A few minutes after they were gone I asked Kaitlyn if she could see Bobo still playing. She never came back with her answer, so a few minutes later I decided to go check (really, I am not a bad mom, it was a pretty confined area and I was watching, plus his 2 big sisters were over there with him as well.)I couldn't see him. I checked a few of the surrounding areas, nothing. Lonny is of course in the bathroom at this point. I have 3 other kids playing, all our food, stoller, camera, money were at the table. I kept looking around, trying to keep all that in sight until Lonny came back from the bathroom. As soon as I saw him I told him I couldn't find Bobo and that I was going to look further. As soon as I started my search I saw an employee. I decided to ask him how long a child needed to be missing before they did something. He didn't even answer my question before he radioed another area. When he got off, he took me to a meeting spot and said they've never lost a kid and that it will be fine. I got Lonny to the meeting spot and continued my search to no avail. I came back to the meeting spot pretty much ready to lose it. A lady on a near by bench was witnessing what was going on and asking me about it. I answered her questions as it was keeping me from completely freaking out. A few minutes went by and she said, "Is that your son?" And I turned around and he was in the arms of his Nursery Teacher from Primary. I lost it. She said they had made a wrong turn quite a ways back and were trying to see where they were so they could hook up with the rest of their party and saw this little boy in the middle of the pathway sitting on the ground eating cotton candy, and thought he looked like Bobo. She realized it was him and went up to him and asked where his mom was, and he said, "I got candy". She picked him up and went to an employee and they said they'd take him to us to see if this was him. She said she'd keep holding him to take him to his mom since she knew us. He was never scared, which was a blessing, because most of my freaking out was thinking that he was freaking out realizing he was lost. He had wanted cotton candy and went and got it. It was a good lesson. We will never go again without some kind of identification in each kids pockets with our cell numbers so if lost, they can reach us!