We started our drive right after field day at Cloverleaf because we knew it was going to take us 2 days to get to LA and we wanted to go to Universal Studios on a Friday rather than a Saturday.
By 2pm we were all packed up and ready to hit the road.
Let's do this!
The drive actually went quite smoothly! Before we knew it we were in Arizona!
And the kids decided to straddle the state lines :)
We had hoped to stop by the Grand Canyon along the way, but after a nice free breakfast and repacking all the kids in the car we ran the numbers and decided we would rather get in to LA in the earlier evening and have time to stop for some groceries before checking in to our air bnb than rush through the Grand Canyon and still arrive at closer to 10pm. Especially since 4 of us were headed to Universal Studios in the morning!
Our Air BnB was perfect! The huge upstairs loft easily housed all our kids plus one cousin (Andrew) who arrived with Ken and Cathy a few hours after we did. Plenty of space, a full kitchen, laundry, lots of parking and a fenced patio/yard area- and only a few minutes from Universal!
The next morning Ken dropped Me, Jeremy, Cathy, Nathan, Hannah and Andrew off at the front gates for a day of awesomeness!
We had maps in hand for where to use the interactive harry Potter wands
And these kids certainly looked the part!
It was a beautiful day...not a cloud in the sky, and we were ready to see it all!
Everybody loved the escalators going between the upper and lower lots. Great view, great music, nice breeze...containment :)
You may notice that within minutes of entering the park the heavy winter robes were banished to a locker!
We headed straight for the lower lot (as told by my Unofficial Guide to Universal) and boy was that a good decision!
We stopped to see the dinosaur encounters where Hannah got to interact with this lovely triceratops (first she got her to bow, but the big oaf fell asleep, so she had to wake her back up...so fun!)
Our first ride was the new Jurassic World ride. We wanted to beat the crowds- and we DID!
We walked right on to the ride, and as you can see the boats are mostly empty at this point.
(We came back that afternoon to ride it again and found a wait of more than an hour!)
THIS RIDE WAS THE BOMB!
When we got off the ride we went to see the raptor encounter- and they had a baby one out!
This guy was trying really hard to get a hold of Cathy's hat!
Most of the rides were very 3D and were one hit wonders for those of us with motion sickness, but the kids LOVED the transformers ride!
After we had seen everything we could on the lower lot we headed back up so explore the upper lot (passing all the crowds now headed down to the lower lot!)
Check out that view!
When we hit Hogsmeade- it was all we had hoped for!
Wands at the ready!
By this point in the day Tyler and Lei had joined us, and thank goodness! Lei introduced us to the slushy version of butterbeer. Yummy!
Check out that stache!
This was a welcome frozen treat by midday in the park.
More happy mustaches!
Good to the last drop.
So fun to spend a day with my Bro and his lovely lady!
The wands took a little bit of learning, but were fun just the same. We tried out all the window tricks as well as saw the show in the wand shop (where a wand chooses a wizard).
We got to see Hagird's hut while in line for the Flight of the Hippogriff.
The line going up to the Forbidden Journey was full of Harry Potter fan eye candy and paraphernalia.
Weaving both indoors and out we had great views of the castle
We ended the day in the food court of the City Walk area, where the kids found a splash pad/fountain to soak themselves in after eating!
Ken came with the little boys (who he had taken out to Bakersfield for the day) to pick us up and we headed home, tired but having had a great day!!!
Saturday we took it easy, rested, slept in, watched movies, etc. Towards the afternoon the kids started to get restless so we found a spash pad to take them to, and they had a blast! After conquering the task of parking we had a little bit of a walk to get there, but along the way we found a cart giving away free ice cream- so yay!
On Sunday we drove out to Malibu beach to try and take some family photos, but despite the overcast skies all my blondies couldn't take the brightness....:(
And nobody was really interested in taking pictures when there was a beach to be playing on...
But we got one mostly good one (wish we hadn't had to shoot in the shadows when it was already overcast, but I took what I could get!)
Ta-da:
Then, at long last it was time to play!
After a lovely morning at the beach we headed to Tyler and Lei's place.
They had an amazing spread of yummy food ready for us and lots of love and fun for all!
Levi was fond of the Gandolf hat. Hello Levi the Gray!?
Look at all those kids piled on Lei! She doesn't look like she is enjoying this at all...don't let her giant smile fool you! :)
Tyler and Dallin just made me smile. 2 Peas in a Pod, a generation apart.
Here is a short compilation of the footage from our weekend in LA- enjoy!
After a fabulous evening with Tyler and Lei we drove to Anaheim to get a good night's sleep before stating our week at Disney!!!
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