Vacation!

We made it home! After a wonderful trip we finally have arrived back home and I have surfaced from underneath an ocean full of dirty laundry. We had an amazing time in Southern California. The picture is view from our hotel room, which wasn't really a room at all, but we were upgraded to a suite: 2 bedrooms, 3 full baths, living room, dining room and kitchen. Who can complain? After our first few nights in 1 room with a fridge and only a pull out chair for Mr 17 to sleep on, we felt like we had gone to heaven. We managed to do Disneyland, Universal Studios, the beach, the San Diego Zoo and Sea World. We put many, many miles on our shoes. Mr. 17 even managed to run for Cross Country while we were gone, although I wasn't comfortable with him running alone in Anaheim. In San Diego he had a beautiful sidewalk that ran along the beach to run on. Miss 9 was the best behaved of the kids. That was a shock, we expected her to be so worn out that she would really be a pill, but she waited until we came home to be a pill instead.
Short version of our vacation:
Pros:
Disneyland
Sea World
The Beach
some of the restaurants: MiMi's, RedBrick Pizza
my first Trader Joe's visit (is it wrong to love a grocery store?)
Garmin's in rental vehicles
seeing the kids faces when we entered Disney
seeing Mr. 17's face when he skated at Vans Skate park and took surf lessons
the backpack we carried everyday full of waters for all of us and granola bars, it must have saved us nearly $200! Seriously!

Cons:
the horrible traffic from Universal Studios to our hotel (how do people live there?)
arguing about directions with Hubby and Mr 17
Miss 14 getting incredibly upset because she was "starving" and we weren't making supper fast enough
flying... just flying, all of it, I hate it
the lines for everything after 1 p.m. pacific time at any theme park or zoo

We have many happy memories from the trip. I'm glad we spent the money to take the kids. Now it's just to agree on a trip for next year. Yikes!