California Love

We arrived in California on Saturday morning. Everything has been amazing!

 Our very own Aunt Edna: As I frequently do, I feel the need to make yet another Vacation reference. We have started calling Bailey Edna in the car due to her unique little set up in the backseat.  She has her sunglasses on under this as well and is watching a movie with her headphones on. She says its so she is in a movie theatre. We have a strange kid. 

We headed out onto the road Thursday night and made it about an hour from Colorado before stopping  for a couple of hours at a rest stop.  Throughout Iowa and Nebraska Bailey was so interested in all the water towers, windmills and even the power lines.  After sleeping in the backseat of the Passat with all of our luggage and a 6 year old, I have found another reason to appreciate this 5 feet tall height of mine.  I think I was a bit more comfortable than Brent.

So after about a 4 hour stop, it was back on the road.  We agreed on doing 5 hour driving stretches but decided to have Brent tackle the mountains of Denver.  That left the beautiful yet very boring stretch of Utah for me.  For those of you who may not know,  Brent has a pretty intense fear of heights (similar im magnitude to my fear of snakes but I will mention that later).  This fear gets really bad back home driving in Duluth Even so you can imagine how fun it was driving though Utah with althe canyons.

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 This is from a rest stop in Utah.  If you notice it is taken of Brent and Bailey walking down a path in the desert from in side the car.  As a person who has panic attacks walking into a pet store for fear of running into a display of snakes, taking a stroller through rattle snake habitats didnt seem to be safe or something I wanted any part of.

We made it as far as Vegas that night.  We hadn't planned on staying there on a Friday night so not only got to experience Vegas quite differently by having a 6 years old with and staying as Bailey put it "in a junk hotel".  Maybe the fact that as we pulled up there were guys sitting on the trrunk of a car drinking 40's without shirts on was a sign to her that this wad not the Bellagio.  All was well and we explored a little that morning before heading to Anaheim.

Well this tablet is starting to think it can write this blog much better than I can I will end there and go get dressed for Disneyland.  I

From our weird family,

Disneyland Here We Come....

Bailey's first road trip to the Black Hills!

Well we are down to just a couple of days before we head out on the Tilley Family Road Trip.  Yesterday was spent deciding on very important things like what types of snacks we need to have with and just how many swim suits Bailey will need to pack (and for any of you that remember Cabo, you know this is a dilemma for Brent, who seemed to have over 10 pairs of swim trunks packed on that trip). This amazing weather has helped but we needed to explain to Bailey that the weather right now in California is not quite as warm as it is here.  I think that will all be forgotten quickly once she learns of the big surprise.

The clues have been going well but there are only so many clues you can give after she has figured out some of the places.  We did love the fact that she asked if we could text Mike Hoeffel and ask if we could come to one of his games because that would be a super fun thing to do on vacation.  That required taking out a map and showing her that New Jersey wasn’t very close to California.  A text to Mike saying hello will have to do for now.

There is a song called It’s Gonna Be a Good Life that is one of Disney’s theme songs on commercials.  Bailey knows this and LOVES the song.  When the song came on yesterday she told us that she was going to listen to the song a lot on the trip because the entire trip will be a Good Life.  If she only knew how fitting the song was….

We have decided exactly how we will let her know that this is a trip to Disneyland.  One of Bailey’s favorite Disney movies is Alice in Wonderland.  We are going to be wrapping up an “Un-Birthday” present to give her when we get to Denver.  She loves the idea that in Wonderland, you get 364 Un-Birthdays so she will be pretty excited when she opens the package to find a new Alice in Wonderland t-shirt and the sticker for the car window that says “We are going to Disneyland!”  I just hope we are able to catch her reaction on video this time.  Last time was super emotional with how excited she got so I hope this is just as exciting to her.

The ipods have been loaded up with movies for her, the DS and video games are packed and now that she is reading, she even has a couple of chapter books packed.  I am sure about 2 hours into the car ride we will hear those dreaded “how much longer” words but we are all so excited I don’t think it will bother us much (well maybe after two days in the car it will but right now I am going with, it won’t bother us). Oh and we made sure to check to make sure Disneyland isn't closed for two weeks for repairs so Brent does not need to go Clark Griswold on them.

With all that we have to get ready I am sure I won’t post again until we are on the road but we plan on posting along the way.  I will definitely let everyone know how the Disneyland surprise turns out.