Trip to California - Day 6

 We had planned on going to Catalina for 2 nights after the Disneyland day, but since it got pushed back a day, so did everything else, so we only spent 1 day at Catalina, which turned out to be plenty.  There's active things to do like hiking, biking, and water activities, but since I wasn't able to do those kinds of things, we didn't have that much to do once we got out there.

 We took a shuttle boat out to the island and went right by the Queen Mary.

 Catalina Island in the distance.

 As we got closer to Catalina, we discovered that the hills looked a lot like eastern Washington.  The round building is a famous building, where movies, concerts and dances are held.

 This was the nice little B&B that we stayed at.  It was just a short walk to town from it.

 There are very few cars on Catalina, we heard there was a waiting list if you wanted to bring a car to the island.  Most people own and drive golf carts to get around in.  You could rent them also.

This was the beach right in town.  It was very crowded on the upper portion, which was right next to the road and all the tourist shops.  There were several water related tours, the one we decided to do was a flying fish tour that took place after dark.  You go out on a boat, that has a couple of spotlights on either side of the boat.  Then they light up the water with the spotlights, as you go down the coast and the flying fish come out of the water and glide for a hundred feet or so.  It was fun and very interesting to see them.

Trip to California - Day 5, Jedi Training

 One of the things Saben really wanted to do was the Jedi Training.  I was really excited when I saw that he was chosen to participate.

 Learning the moves.

 After the kids had been instructed and practiced several times, a couple of storm trooper came out, along with Darth Vader.

 The kids were all lined up to get a chance to try out what they had learned against either Darth Vader or Darth Maul.

 When they were lined up, I all of a sudden spotted Annika.  I hadn't realized that she had been chosen also.

 She went right up and fought Darth Vader, although she did it her way instead of the way she'd been taught.

 Saben waiting his turn.

The Jedi trainees defeated all the bad guys.

Trip to California - Day 5, Disneyland

 Thursday, everyone was feeling better, so we headed to Disneyland again.  The first Disney character Annika saw was Minnie Mouse.

 Saben and Annika in front of the castle.

 Trying to pull the sword out of the stone.  I have a picture of Kari & Todd doing the same thing almost 30 years ago.

 Annika sitting on my lap in the wheelchair.  Shortly after the picture was taken we were told by one of the Disneyland employees, that I wasn't supposed to let anyone ride with me, so Annika wouldn't ride with me or even sit on my lap again the rest of the day.  No one said anything at Legoland and it was nice to be able to let her ride with me when she got tired while we were there.  She did fine with all the walking at Disneyland though, so it worked out all right.  It was so awesome to not have to stand in the long lines to get on the rides!  We were able to get on probably twice as many rides as we would have without the wheelchair!  The only catch was that the person in the wheelchair had to go on the rides which was fine most of the time.  The only ride I didn't want to go on was Space Mountain, which was Kyle and Saben's favorite, but they seemed to do fine going on it without me because they kept going back to it and rode it numerous times.

Ready to ride our horses.  It's hard to see Saben, but he's on the other side of Kari.

Annika and I went on the tea cups.

The start of the Disney parade.  They even had a special place roped off for people in wheelchairs to watch the parade from.  We also found out that there would be a roped off area for the lazer and firework show in the evening, but I was tired by then and we didn't stay for it.

Is this a princess pose?  You clasp your hands together and place them under your chin.

Trip to California - Day 4

 Day 4 of our trip was Wed. July 18th, Annika's birthday.  She turned 5 and this is a picture of her right before breakfast.  We were going to leave to go to Disneyland by 6am, which we managed to do, but on our way there, Annika got sick.  After cleaning up the mess in the car they were driving, we continued on, but a few miles later, Kari called and said that Annika still wasn't feeling well, so they were going to turn around and go back to the house they were staying at.  It turned out to be a good thing they did, because she got sick one more time, plus Kyle had a sore arm and went to a walk-in clinic that told him he had an infection in his arm.  It was the arm with the broken finger and he was given some anti-biotics to take.  After sleeping for a while Annika felt a lot better, so we think it might have just been excitement that caused her to get sick.

 Ken and I had been planning on staying at a hotel in Long Beach after our day at Disneyland, so we continued on our way and did several low-key things the rest of the day.  We decided to drive up the coast instead of taking the freeway and spotted some surfers, that we sat and watched for awhile.

 I really enjoy watching surfers, but don't understand how they know which wave to try to get up on.

 I liked this tree which was in the same area as the surfers.

 We stopped at this pier right before lunch time and walked out on it.

It was a long pier, but I managed to slowly walk out to the end.  By the time we got back, it was lunch time, so we ate lunch outside at a restaurant on the left side of the pier.  The rest of the day we slowly made our way to Long Beach and looked around there.

Trip to California - Day 3

 Our third day in San Diego was a lower key day, so we could have a little rest between our Legoland day and our Disneyland day.  I had 2 free tickets to go on a tour that I had gotten 10 years ago when I took a tour in Boston, with my mom, my aunt and my sister-in-law, and they were still good, so Kari, Annika and I went on it.  We decided to go on the "Seal" tour because I couldn't really do the tour where you hopped off and on the trolley.  I don't remember how much we paid for the tour 10 years ago, but I was surprised to discover that it would cost $19, just for Annika.  It would have been $30 each for adults, so I was glad we had the free tickets!  (Although, we wouldn't have gone on it, if I didn't have the free tickets.)

 The tour went on land, then on the water.  The land portion was not interesting at all.  They just told us a little about the area we drove in as we made our way to the water entry point.

 San Diego from the water.

 There were a couple of interesting things on the water portion of the trip, we got to see the America's cup sailboat as it passed by us.

 There were a lot of pelicans on this dock.

 We also saw a lot of California sea lions and they were the highlight of the trip.  I was really disappointed at how little we saw and how boring the majority of the trip was.  There's no way that the trip was worth the price they were charging!

 Annika sitting on a post after the tour.

While the females were on the "Seal" tour, the guys went on a tour of an aircraft carrier, which they thoroughly enjoyed and it was a lot cheaper.  Later in the day, when we were swimming in the swimming pool where we were staying, Saben lost one of his loose teeth.

Trip to California - Day 2, Part2

 Saben swallowed by a shark.

 Riding in a boat, with Annika in charge of driving.

 We caused a boat jam!

 Saben did better driving his boat.

 Kyle tried driving my wheelchair.

 After driving boats, they drove cars.

 There was a couple of areas in the park where you could get wet.  I thought this was a funny sign, I guess the whole family could get inside the booth and get dry.

 This was one of the rides that people got wet on.  The people in the ships on the ride were squirting people walking around, but there were also the same squirt guns placed around the fence of the ride, so you could squirt those on the ride.

 We spent part of the afternoon in the water park. Kari, Ken, Saben, & Annika went on the river ride.

Saben & Annika also went on the water slides.