Fun little Surprise - read through and then post

Get ready for a LONG post!

We just got back from an epic surprise trip to Universal Studios and, let me just say, it was one for the freaking books! I feel like I say/feel that every time we take a trip, but I was telling Larry on the trip that vacations before kids were fun, but now that they are old enough to enjoy them and be excited for them, doing vacations through their eyes is like doing Christmas through their eyes. There's just a new excitement to it and I absolutely love it.

So a while ago, Cara started reading the Harry Potter books (I kind of worried she was a little too young, but the girl just loves to read and you can't make her stop so I figured why get in her way? Let her do her thing). We then decided to watch the movies after she finished each book and I realized if we continued on like I thought we would, she'd finish the books around March-ish. So I told Larry it would be kind of fun if we planned a trip to Universal for the Harry Potter "land" they had once she was done (thinking we'd do it around their Spring Break). Well this year is another funky one as far as vacation planning goes, so when we saw a three day weekend coming up in February we decided to plan it for then. Because of the tight timing we knew we'd have to fly, rather than drive, and even though that's more expensive, I was SO excited to take the kids all on their first flight (something we've talked about for a long time). Because of all the excitement, we decided it would be even more fun if we kept it a secret until the last possible minute (we scheduled our flight out for Friday night so the kids would still go to school and we'd be able to eat dinner before we had to leave, as long as everything got packed up quick enough).

So, with that, this last week has been a little chaotic. I had to make sure the laundry got cleaned on Thursday (instead of my usual Friday laundry day), I decided to only work 4 hours on Friday so that I could make a grocery list, get us packed up, tidy up the house, and get any last minute things done before we had to leave. I actually got everything packed up quickly (probably less than an hour) and then brought all the things we'd need down to the pantry so I could keep it hidden. After Larry picked them up from school, he took them downstairs while he worked out (like he usually does) and then I made sure to load everything up into the trunk of the van so the kids wouldn't see it. 

After dinner, they were all in pajamas and ready for our usual Friday Movie Night, but I told them they had to put more clothes on (Cara was just in a training bra, so I told her she needed a real shirt. Gwen was in a pajama dress so I told her she needed pants) and that's when they started to wonder what was going on. They guessed we might be going to an actual movie theater or maybe the pool (oh and earlier in the week I mentioned they had a 3 day weekend and said "we should do something fun" and they all said they wanted to go to the carwash. We got a HUGE laugh out of that since they had NO idea what was coming).

On the drive to the airport, all the kids fell asleep so I had high hopes that we could surprise them as we pulled up to the terminal, but then Cara and Gwen woke up early so we had them see if they could guess where we were. They couldn't tell until we found a plane parked off to the side and then finally asked (very confused) "are we at the airport?" and when we said yeah, it was part 1 of a surprise they were excited, but of course, very curious about what part 2 was (which was Universal).

We had Larry drop us off with the backpacks, suitcase, and booster seats while he went and parked the van. I ended up finding a free cart to load things on to make it easier to take things/everyone into the terminal, so that was nice. Pierce was VERY nervous by this point and kept crying (which I felt bad for, but I knew he'd be okay once we got through TSA). I mentioned our flight was at 8:55 and Cara immediately went to the Departures screen and found out we were going to Burbank, but wasn't sure what that meant. The only guess they had was that we were going to a store (haha!). They were so excited about going on a real plane, though.

Luckily, the airport was pretty dead at this time of night, so once Larry got back to us, checking in and getting our bag and boosters checked in took almost no time at all (and the workers were very friendly and even gave the kids a sheet of stickers to share since it was their first flight). And they only charged us a bag fee for the suitcase, not the boosters (phew!). Going through TSA was even a lot more smooth. I kept warning the kids they'd have to take off their shoes and go through the body scanner, but we didn't need to. They had us put our stuff in the trays (but we could keep our shoes on) and then go through the metal detector thing and said we'd be good as long we didn't set that off. Once we got through that, we thought we'd have to go pretty far for our gate, but found out they moved it to one a lot closer to the security, so we didn't have far to walk (and the new gate was RIGHT next to the bathrooms, which was nice because I intended to take the kids to go potty right before we boarded, just to make sure. Larry thought it was silly since planes have bathrooms and the kids might like going in those ones, but I really don't like airplane bathrooms so I wanted to avoid that).

I had packed a couple snack bags (one for going out and one for coming back) so once we found our gate and got seats picked, I gave them a couple. The girls read their books, and Pierce just kind of soaked things in (luckily he did stop crying once we got our bags checked in, so he was just quietly observing at that point). I finally decided I needed to tell the kids where we were going since their guesses were going nowhere. Cara and Gwen were SO excited to hear about Universal Studios with the rides and the Harry Potter world. Lucy and Pierce didn't really react, very unsure of what it all meant.

So while we waited, Larry took the kids to walk around the airport and check out some shops (and more of the moving walk ways, haha). Then about 10 minutes before we boarded, we hit up bathrooms and got things packed back up. Lucy kept making comments that the bathroom stalls were so big she could do a cartwheel in them, haha. When we went down the walkway to the airplane, the pilot ended up coming out and, seeing the kids, asked if they wanted to check out the pilot area. I was secretly hoping we'd get to do this, since I never got to as a kid and have seen others post about their kids doing it, so that was pretty awesome. I mentioned I'm a Delta loyalist so I think they appreciated that haha. They even got the kids wings and an extra snack and the pilot himself brought us a card with the "our first flight" details. It was a very nice experience (I expected so many bumps, but we didn't really have any).

The kids were so excited that the seats had TVs and the attendants even handed out free earphones so they could watch movies or play games. Larry sat with Pierce and Cara and they mostly played games. I sat with Gwen and Lucy. They watched shows while I watched Devil Wears Prada. We all liked the snack cart (I think we all got different snacks, but all stuck to the apple juice drink). Gwen loved looking out the window of the plane, but said she was bummed it was too dark to really see anything. I told her our flight home would be during the day so she'd get to see more on that flight.

We did land pretty late, so by that point the kids were super tired. Unfortunately, we still had to grab the bags find our way to the car rental (which ended up being a pretty loooong walk), wait to get that (luckily there were free city pamphlets there for the kids to collect) and then head to our hotel. We ended up getting a black minivan so Pierce kept saying we now had 2 black cars (I told him we also had 2 vans, but he just said no to that. It didn't make sense to him, haha).

We did hit up bathrooms again at the rental place so once we got to the hotel (and figured out the whole parking/check in process), we were able to hurry and change into new PJs and go to bed - it was about 11 at that point so we were ALL done!

The breakfast our hotel offered in the morning was great! Not the best, but they had some pancakes, eggs, breakfast potatoes, cereal, breads/muffins, fruit, and dairy items (yogurts and milks). We did what we could to get the kids to eat as much as possible, we'd grab some bananas to take with us, head back to the room to get ready, and then head out. Usually we had some time between breakfast and when we needed to leave, so the kids would watch live TV (a weird concept for them, they'd ask if they could pick the show/episode and we had to tell them, nope it's whatever is on, haha) and I'd pack things up for the day. I realized I didn't bring snacks for the park, so I just ended up splitting up our travel day snacks a little bit.

I did tell the kids that each day we'd get a treat and at the end they could pick one souvenir so to keep a good eye out on things. The first day we really only rode 6 rides. I went into it telling myself it was a weekend and would be pretty busy so try not to rush or get impatient and so I didn't pay real attention to line times and I guess they were longer than I realized. Lucy was REALLY nervous for the first ride and wanted to sit out, but once everyone else got on and started to go she realized she wanted to try it so her and I rode the next ride (it was the Harry Potter Hippogriff coaster, which Pierce LOVED and said he wanted to go on again and again). She did end up liking it, so it was a win to start with.

We then went around and did more Harry Potter stuff (rides, shops, etc.). After that, we went and did The Simpsons ride, where we also got lunch: 2 burger meals and a salad and all of it split. This made it not too expensive and everything was eaten. Cara, especially, just inhaled the food! We then headed to the Mario Kart ride in the Super Nintendo World, which was done up really cool. However, we almost had a Mickey Runaway Railway moment where the ride stopped working as we were in the line, but this time we stayed because I wasn't about to have dreams of that ride forever! It only took about 5-10 minutes, if that, to get back up and running so it wasn't too bad. After that, Larry took Cara and Gwen on the Jurassic Park ride while I took the younger two (who were too small) to the dino playground, which they loved (especially when they talked me into getting popcorn to snack on). Then we ended on the Studio Tour (which Lucy REALLY didn't like, it was too scary for her). After all that, we stopped at Honey Dukes in the Harry Potter area for treats for the day (Cara got this big round, colorful sucker. Gwen got a caramel apple, but she was mad I asked them to cut it up haha. Lucy got cotton candy. Pierce we chose one of the shelf candy for. Gwen ended up being happy that her apple was cut up when we got back to our hotel and she saw how much easier it was to eat). I stopped at the Hello Kitty cafe to get my treats, which were pretty good. Larry didn't want any treats.

For dinner, we ordered some pizza and then quickly put the kids in the shower while we waited for that to be delivered. We all had full bellies, clean pajamas, and all the movement tired us out, so we were ready for bed again.

Our 2nd day, we enjoyed our hotel breakfast again (Lucy and Pierce only wanted bananas, but Pierce at least added yogurt with his). We got ready and decided to head out earlier so that we could check out the It'Sugar candy store before going into the park (Larry convinced the kids that's the place to get our treats for that day). Unfortunately, it was closed, so we just headed to the park earlier.

This day we were able to get a lot more in. We wanted to head over to the Despicable Me area since that had the most of the things we missed, but it opened later, so we hit up 2nd rides that everyone wanted to do. We did both Harry Potter rides and the Simpsons one again (Lucy said Simpsons was her favorite). Then we did Life of Pets, both Despicable Me rides. We stopped at some cute diner place for lunch, which had almost the exact same food as the Krusty Burger (from the previous day), so we ordered the same food and split it again. While eating, we saw a caricature artist and I REALLY wanted to get one of our family, but it was going to be $300 and I just couldn't imagine spending that! After eating, I took Cara on the Mummy ride, while Larry took the others (who were too small for the ride) to the Dinosaur Playground (and they got to see the Raptor "show"). The Mummy ride said it was a 70 minute wait, which was our longest time we'd seen all day, but luckily it only took about 40 minutes to get through. After that, Cara and Gwen talked me into going on the Jurassic Park ride, which I didn't want to do since I was chilly and didn't want to get wet, but when they really want to take me, how can I say no? And luckily it didn't get us too wet. It was fun because they were telling me where to expect sprays from the tiny dinosaurs. We ended that day at the Water World show, which was really cool and the kids really had fun with (Cara really wanted to be in the Splash Zone, but was bummed when we didn't really get wet, haha)

Once we were all done, we went out and got souvenirs. Cara and Gwen both got this owl that you can prop on your shoulder and it moves around. Pierce got a Fast and the Furious car. Lucy got this stuffed Boo (from Mario) that turns inside out. I wanted lounge pants, but couldn't find any I liked in my size (hardly any in my size as it was). We then headed to the It'Sugar shop and let the kids pick out a couple scoops of their favorite candy and then I got my own bag of candy as my souvenir and treat, haha. We decided to stop at this restaurant, Lucy's, for dinner since it was so close to the hotel. It was a VERY small restaurant, but the lady who was doing everything (she was the cook, server, cashier, etc.) was really nice and friendly and kept telling us she makes everything from scratch. It was really good, but we ended up getting way too much so it was our priciest meal of the trip (and we ate most of it, so it wasn't a waste).

That night, Larry got the kids all cleaned up, I packed as much as I could, and then we took our showers. We got everything ready for the next morning and passed out. 

We had a very early morning today. We got up earlier than we had in the previous days. Got dressed, packed the last stuff up. We then headed down for breakfast while Larry loaded the car up with the bags. We ate all we could and then checked out and headed to the airport. Unfortunately, it was busier this time since it was more during the day and the airport is under construction so it was smaller and more ghetto and the kiosks didn't work so well, so we had to do a lot more to get the bags checked and get to TSA. Once we found our gate, we made sure to hit up the bathrooms (Lucy made a comment that we can't do cartwheels in those small stalls, haha). I went and walked some of the airport souvenir shops and Cara talked me into getting her a hat (that was super cute) and then I got the girls some keychains with their initials, I got Gwen and Lucy these sparkly pens and then Pierce I got an airplane book with lift up flap parts. Cara also showed me this cute Hollywood magnet so I got that and an Oscar shaped one as my fun souvenirs. They were all mostly happy.

This day was super rainy and windy, so when we were boarding, we had to go outside and it was SO chilly. Unfortunately, this flight didn't have the TV on the seats, but luckily I downloaded some episodes of Morphle for Pierce to watch, everyone else read. Since it was a smaller plane, Cara and Gwen were on their own row, Larry sat with Lucy, and I sat with Pierce. Lucy and Gwen got to use the airplane bathroom, but since I absolutely hate those, Larry took them. Also, the flight home was much quicker, so that was a nice surprise.

After landing, we hit up the bathrooms, again, and by the time we got to baggage, ours were the last ones just waiting for us. We were so ready to be home so it was nice when we got to the bus stop for the parking lot and it was there, ready for us too. We got to our car quickly, which was nice because carrying the boosters and the suitcase (Pierce really didn't want to walk on his own so we had him ride on the suitcase) was NOT fun.

We got home in time to unpack, wipe down all our stuff that couldn't be washed, started the laundry, and got the grocery shopping done. I put out the kids Valentine's gifts on the table before we left, so they got that surprise when we got home, too. Then, we just relaxed and gave the kitties all the loves for the rest of the day. 

Valentine's surprise waiting for the kids

It ended up being such a great trip. It went so smoothly, no real hiccups or meltdowns, everyone had so much fun and lots of good memories were made. Family vacations are definitely getting easier and I get excited for more!