After our trip to the beach, we cleaned up and headed out. I caught a few snaps as we left...
We made a pit stop for supplies (I think I mentioned that in the last post), and then we arrived in Newport Beach. No, wait. After battling A LOT of LA traffic, and after making a suuuuper fast stop to pick up a replacement fedora for E (who lost his beloved hat in Costa Rica), we finally made it to Newport.
At that point, Brian did some sort of crazy 35-point turn and got the RV parked at the Marriott. And seriously, who pulls up to a Marriott in a 31-foot RV??? But we had Marriott points to spend, and I was intent on showering and feeling fresh for our family photos.
Except we had about 30 minutes to accomplish that. We JAMMED and got back out the door. I held my arms up in front of the air conditioning vents while Brian navigated the route to Balboa Pier.
But...
We were running a few minutes late at that point. I started texting, and then calling, Tara to tell her that we were on our way. And then we made a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong parking lot. Brian made me get out and tell the guy behind us that he was going to attempt another 35-point turn. Fortunately, the guy told us that we could continue through the lot and exit the other side. Phew.
But then we got to the right lot -- finally -- and found out that there were zero available spaces. And certainly not two together, which would be necessary for parking our big rig. Ugh. By this time, Tara had found us and hopped in the RV. She said that there probably wasn't much we could do (the beach area was PACKED and the street parking was nil), so she offered to help us get down to Huntington Beach and do the session there.
No. No no no no no no no. I was NOT eager to lose more time and lose the fun, colorful setting of the Balboa Fun Zone. I was not ready to let go. So I found the zen place within my frazzled mind, spotted a liquor store across the street, and told Brian to swing our wide ass into that lot. I was going to sweet-talk the manager into letting us park there if it was the last thing I did.
Turns out, my powers of persuasion came through for us. Success! We were now off to take pictures.
Too bad that my kids' helpfulness and good moods lasted about two seconds.
But Tara is an absolute pro, and we ended up getting a full and fun session. I was ready to pummel each of my boys at various points, but in the end all was good. I am very much looking forward to seeing the results in a few weeks.
The next morning, we returned to the RV, which was parked here:
And we were off to Disneyland.
We had a fantastic day at the Big D, and the kids were remarkably good (surprising, given their greedy nuttiness the night before). Here is a random selection of shots from our day in the park.
Among other things, we hit Autopia. This is why I will NEVER ride with Noah when he has his real license:
We stayed at Disneyland until it closed at midnight. Then we loaded the kids into the RV, got them in jams, and headed to the Pomona Walmart, where we bunked down for the night in the nice, rent-a-cop-patrolled parking lot. Home, sweet home. :)
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