Today we had to pack up and leave California to head back home. Check-out time at the hotel was 11am, so we slept in a bit and got things ready to go. We got on the road a little after 10am. The drive home was fairly uneventful aside from Andrew needing to go to the bathroom when we were in the middle of nowhere--always fun! When we were about 3 hours from home, we got a call from Nicole's mom telling us that a transformer had caught fire and the power had been out since about 1pm. Big deal, right? WRONG! Before we left for vacation, we had turned up the thermostat in our house so that the AC wouldn't be running so much while we were gone. We had the thermostat on 85 degrees. It was only about 107 degrees outside. Oh, and one other small problem--the day before we left I put a chain lock on the door because the kids like to open the door and go outside sometimes; well our garage door opener is electric, and that was our only way into the house. Anyway we kept in touch with Mom as we were getting closer to home, and they were saying that the power would not be restored until some time in the middle of the night. We stopped at a gas station on the way home to get some ice. Then we went over to Mom's to figure out what to do. It was pretty hot in her house. I didn't want to think about what our house would feel like. I left Nicole and the kids at Mom's and went home to see if I could find some way to get in. After some work and crazy ingenuity, I figured out how to get into our house. And yes it was hot! Andrew has a little battery-powered alarm clock with a thermostat on it and it said it was 87 degrees. Not as hot as I would have expected, but it definitely felt hot. Nicole and her mom went for a drive to find somewhere in the valley with power so we could get some dinner. I took the kids back to our house to get ready for bed as soon as they ate some dinner. They were running around in their underwear, playing with toys by the light of a flashlight I rigged up to hang from the ceiling fan. It was really funny to watch Andrew run around chasing the light on the floor. I unloaded the van and then put a movie on my computer for the kids to watch while we waited for Nicole. She found a Jack-in-the-Box with power, so they got dinner and on the way home stopped at Fry's where SRP had a huge refrigerator semi and were passing out free bags of ice. We got the kids in bed, and I am going to finish up this blog by showing you all of our fun souvenirs from our vacation. Rory loved her light-up Cinderella wand (and Andrew loves his little sister, and being in pictures).
Andrew's Astro Blaster. He pretends I am Zurg.
Rory, of course needed a new dolly. She loves "Big girl" Rapunzel.
These Disney Babies were so cute. We were kind of surprised that Rory didn't choose a baby such as Ariel or Boo, but she adamantly wanted Pluto.
And once Rory had Pluto, Andrew wanted Baby Simba.
I think Andrew is behind there somewhere. That shield will definitely protect him--it's as big as he is.
And there's Daddy's sword and shield.
And here's my cocoa mug--it's huge!
Here are our ornaments for this year. If you can't read it: "Our Disneyland Vacation" seemed appropriate. And we just really liked the Mickey Ears with Santa Mickey on top.
We'll have to decide what picture to put in here.
This is the one and only "2011 Minnie" that was in either park. We couldn't find her anywhere, only Mickey. Then Nicole saw her in the window display of one of the Mainstreet shops. I asked one of the workers if we could buy her. They said she was probably faded and ruined from exposure to the sun, but when they took her out she was still in good shape. So now she has a nice home on our bed.
Well, hopefully the power will come back on sooner than later, and we won't melt in the mean time. What a fun way to end our vacation, huh!
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