Disneyland or BUST!

Sometime in August we could start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for Earl's* 'start up' at work to finally be finished. During this 6+ month period no one was allowed to take vacation, unless it was for an emergency. And prior to that, we hadn't been on vacation outside of trips to the beach in over a year. We hadn't been on a family trip that wasn't to Utah or the beach in years. So a family vacation was LOOONG overdue. I think it was back during Earl's sabbatical. Sometime around the last week of August, Earl and I booked a trip to Disneyland. We arranged for Mickey and his friends to call and tell the girls the good news. They were thrilled, of course. And from that day on we talked about Disneyland every day. We made a chain to count down the days. Each chain had something silly on it like a question. "Who is your favorite princess?" Or an activity: "Decorate your autograph books."

Because we only booked the trip a little over a month before leaving,

we didn't have to wait very long.

To milk it for all it was worth, I decided to make some "Disney Bucks" for the girls to earn their souvenir money. They got them for doing chores, homework, making good choices, etc. The Bucks had different Disney characters on them. For a while, Angela thought these were tickets to go on rides. One day she was looking at her cash and told me how many times she could go on Peter Pan and Buzz Lightyear, etc. by counting the bucks with those characters. (o:

We decided to drive rather than fly down. For several reasons. We love road trips, we love the time together and the extra anticipation. The girls are at a great age for a big road trip, we have a DVD player and our van is perfect for a comfortable, long drive. We also liked the idea of saving some money and splurging in other areas on the trip - like the hotel.
During this pit stop, daddy had the girls do some jumping jacks to get the old blood pumping. (o:

We found a wonderful Hampton Inn just outside of Sacramento in a great part of town. It was the perfect "halfway" point. We stayed here on the way back as well. A nice, relaxing dinner at Chevy's was a treat after 9 hours of driving.
The next day we had 6+ hours left to get to Disneyland. Did you know that driving through central California is extremely boring? Not far out of Los Angeles on I-5 there is NOTHING for a loooong time. And we've been through some pretty long stretches in Idaho and Utah.

Well, on with the fun part!