Our Vacation......The anticipation is killing me!

Planning for a vacation is maddening!  We booked our cruise in the middle of last year.  That gave us plenty of time to plan and save funds, but it also was very hard to wait until it got here!!!  It was my idea to do the cruise, although we all decided as a family that it was how we wanted to spend our Christmas money. 

As time got closer, serious planning took place:  who's going to take care of the house, the animals, the paper routes, teach my Sunday School class?  It was actually surprisingly easy to find people to fill all our responsibilities while we are gone.  The Muzzys took over all four of Erin and Austin's paper routes.  Dea Potter led the music in Sac Meeting and RS for me and Corinne.  A friend of Jim's, Ben, lived at the house and took care of ALL the animals (BIG undertaking!!!).  Sadly, I was released from my Sunday School class the week before we left, but it did save me from having to find a sub. 

There's packing, getting the van a check-up to make the long trip to Southern California, cleaning, making sure there is enough feed to last two weeks for all the animals......  By the time we had finished, I was READY to get some R and R! 

We also had to decide what we were going to do once we got to California.  We left Tuesday morning, which gave us one day to travel and then Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat to fill before we had to get on the ship on Sunday.  We decided we wanted to go to Disneyland for two days.....But it's SOOOO expensive.  With research and help and info from friends, we found discount tickets.  Two day, park-hopper tickets.  That works for us!  We also needed to decide who we wanted to visit on our last two days in the area.  We had a long list of friends we wanted to see, but knew that it would be impossible to see everyone.....grrrr!  And lastly, everyone had certain restaurants that we don't have in Oregon that we wanted to make sure we hit while there.

So with all our lists and plans in hand the day finally came!  I was so nervous that I'd forget something!  I checked 100 times to make sure that I had our birth certificates, boarding passes, conformation number for our Disneyland tickets, phone numbers for everyone....there was so much to remember!  So...I'm sure you'd love to know if we DID forget anything!.....well since you asked, yes!  I won't say any names, but one of us forgot our driver's license which is NEEDED to get on the boat.....  minor detail!   But with Ben's help, the license was found and sent priority mail to a friend's house in California.  Disaster adverted!!!

Now we just had to endure the 15 hour drive with four kids to look forward to!  yikes!!!