Miller family vacation - 2012

Sept. 8 - 13

This year, we decided to head to Disneyland once again, with my family. It was a shorter trip than usual, but it was enough time, and still just as much fun. We booked, planned, and paid for this trip clear back at the first of the summer...but didn't tell the kids about it.

I knew they would be excited to go to Disneyland, but I also knew that if we told them where we were going, we wouldn't ever stop hearing about it until the day we left. So we kept it a secret.

We went down the same weekend as Kadence's birthday, so we just told the kids they were coming down to celebrate. They got here Friday night, so we celebrated then told the kids we had a game for them.

Kind of a last minute thing. Wheel of Fortune...without the wheel. 

The kids knew at this point that we were going on vacation the next day, just didn't know where to.

Can you tell that Noah and Megan had it figured out? 

We told them to stay quiet so the little ones could figure it out

They were SO excited! Cutler was jumping up and down and screaming. You would've thought he's never been before ;)

My parents, Makayla's family, and Chad all left Saturday morning-ish. We couldn't leave until later in the day because Noah had a football game, Cutler had a soccer game, and Lexie had a birthday party. Which actually was fine with us. We weren't planning on going to any parks until Sunday. Plus, they stopped...a lot, to shop. We didn't really want to take all day to get there.

We caught up to them at Barstow. It was the perfect spot to let the kids get out for a little bit to run around, and we could do a little bit of shopping. Then we mixed the kids all up: Lexie & Addi went with grandma and grandpa, Cutler & Kadence with us, and Noah and Megan with Makayla & Cory. We grabbed some dinner and the rest of the drive was heavenly!! 

We got to the hotel, checked in, and grabbed an ice cream just in time to go to the breakfast room of the hotel to watch the fireworks. The kids were so overly excited for the next day. And I'm not gonna lie, we were too!!