Great America...Here we come!

If memory serves me right, every spring break of my childhood consisted of going down to Grandma Anna's house in S. California and going to an amusement park or zoo (Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm were our favorite parks). We looked forward to spring break like most people look forward to Christmas. We took the whole week and just played! On our way down, we'd stop in Corning, CA at the Olive Pit to taste olives and get our striped candy sticks to suck into sharp sword points for poking each other. We'd play every imaginable car game and sing every song we could think of to keep boredom at bay while traveling the 12+ hours in our truck/camper. (At one point, we squished 6 people into a tiny Nissan Sentra for the trek, with a toddler (Shira) riding in a hammock strapped to the roof and hanging between the front and back seats so she'd swing and smack our heads on every turn and bump). At Grandma's, we'd pick fresh oranges from the orchard by her house and eat whole wheat pancakes with sunflower seeds (not that popular with small children, but tasty to adults). Grandma always had raw almonds to snack on and Ricola cough drops that we'd eat like candy. We'd swim in her pool and go get burned at the beaches and almost drown in the waves (to this day I hate going in the ocean because of all my near-drowing experiences).

This year, we noticed that my brothers, Dallas and Weston (the twins) hadn't done anything or gone anywhere for spring break and it was Thursday! We had previously tried to get them to come up to our place in Myrtle Point, but I guess that didn't sound appealing enough. We felt bad that they were being robbed of memories of eventful spring breaks, so Hyrum decided we should wisk them off to Great America for the weekend.

We fixed the rotars in our van and left at about 1 pm on Friday from Hyrum's business in Coquille, stopped at our house to purchase tickets online and load our packed bags, then drove 3 hours down to Ashland, picked up Dallas and Weston (and the mystery food mom made them pack, minus Matilda, the wet rag for wiping sticky hands that mom named in an effort to make it exciting to take) and headed south to Santa Clara. We stopped and stayed at a smoky Super 8 (dang, I hate smokers!!! Sorry Tasha, Steve and Nial.) and then cursed our GPS as we tried to find Great America on Saturday morning. We finally found it though, and we let the twins loose to play on their own while we attended a baby fair where I picked up a frosted titanium slingback diaper bag with accessories that I've been needing. You can check it out at http://www.oyikes.com/slingback.html. I've been looking for a stylish slingback bag to take the place of my purse and bulky diaper bag, and this one had a great sale pricetag because of the fair. I love it!

We took our double jogger (Phil and Ted's) and our umbrella stroller (Maclaren) and boy were they great! I can't stress to you enough how much I love my jogger and stroller! I have to pause and tell you guys about them in case any of you readers are in the market for a jogger or stroller.

If you're in the market for a double jogger (but not for infant twins), you will LOVE LOVE LOVE the Phil and Ted's! Take a look at it on http://www.philandteds.com/nz/sportdouble_07_1.htm, but you'll have to buy it elsewhere online...it's a New Zealand product. Don't freak out about the price! If you don't start out with this one, you will easily spend just as much on a travel system, umbrella and jogger, then when the second baby arrives, a double stroller, and double jogger. This takes the place of all of those! Do yourself a favor...skip the garage full of baby gear that's frustrating and low quality. Buy the Phil and Ted's and you'll never be sorry!!! It's been the best piece of baby equipment I've ever purchased! The seat even fully reclines to make a bed for a newborn.

I started out with a bulky travel system, a flimsy umbrella, a single jogger, and a double bike trailer. All of them were sale purchases, but none of them were high quality, so they all frustrated me. My garage was so full of strollers that we harldly had any room left over! Then I had my second baby and needed a double stroller! I looked online and read about the Phil and Teds and was impressed by the reviews. I bit the bullet and bought the red one, and I've been in LOVE ever since. It replaced all the other strollers, so I garage saled them. I only wish someone had told me about the Phil and Ted's from the beginning! For accessories, I highly recommend the sun shade and rain cover, and though the panier bags are sometimes bulky when full, they are sooo convenient when you need to pack stuff around. Oh, when the jogger is in newborn mode, like the picture above with Kiersa, the back seat gets put in the front like how Hyatt is sitting in this picture.
If, like me, you've cursed your flimsy $10 umbrella stroller while wandering a zoo or park, you can't go wrong with a Maclaren! I got mine for a smoking hot discount at a Target in Vancouver, WA. I just got the cheapest one they make (the Volo, no recline unfortunately), but it's wonderful! My sister, Daisha, got the Maclaren Triumph and loves it, especially because it has a recline. Check the Maclarens out on http://www.maclarenbaby.com/us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=99&Itemid=491. Here's Tilly taking a break in the Maclaren.

All in all, it was such a fun day. Great America is the perfect park to go to if you only have one day to play. We spent all day Saturday there, and it was just right. Amazingly, there were practically no lines whatsoever, and the weather was perfect! It was funny because when we picked the boys up on Friday, it was snowing in Ashland. We had stopped at Walmart to pick up chains for the Siskiyou Pass, but they didn't stock chains anymore. Hyatt had puked all over himself and me in the car, so we picked up a change of clothes for the both of us instead. Once we hit the California border (which is only 14 miles from Ashland), the weather cleared up and there wasn't a trace of snow in sight!

Here are some pictures from our vacation.

The Johnsons invade Great America.

Hyrum kangarooing Kiersa around.

Tilly and Hyatt waiting in one of the only lines that day.

Talea had a blast! Good thing they had kid rides for my little shorties.
Talea's favorite ride...she's not scared easily! Look at how small she is compared to all the other kids. She barely reached the height requirement.
Waiting to get on the double-decker carousel.

I went on the dizzy ride with Tilly thinking I could handle it, but I was a bit queezy afterward. My stomach has really weakened since I got pregnant with Talea.

Hyatt and Talea really liked whipping the snail with the reins. Maybe I ought to get them in riding lessons! (Tilly loves to play with real snails, by the way).

It's the end of the day and time for Dallas and Weston to push!!

Mt. Rushmore seems to bring the tiger out in my brothers, Dallas and Weston. Hyatt's taking notes.

On our way home, we got lost in San Fransciso (thanks to our double-crossing GPS), but crossed over the bay bridge and the Golden Gate bridge and saw the Oakland temple in the distance. We stopped at In n Out Burger for dinner since Dallas and Weston had never been there and had always wanted to go. Of course we had to get the T-shirts. We finally arrived at my cousin, Angi's, house at about 11pm. We had a fun chat with her and Jared while Tilly climbed into bed with her cousin, Dana, who's only 5 days younger, but was already fast asleep. The next day, Sunday, was a whirlwind. We left Angi's in search of a church, and found one, but since we were in street clothes sitting in the foyer, they thought we were investigators and the sister missionaries were very anxious to speak to us! I think we broke their hearts. We went on from there up the winding, nauseating road. We saw some sheep trials where Border Collies were hearding sheep just like on the movie Babe, so we stopped on the side of the road and watched that for a while. It was so fun to watch! You don't know what you're missing until you see it in real life. We passed by where the petrified Redwoods are and made it back to Ashland in pretty good time. Hyatt hurled in the car again, but this time I noticed the signs and got a bag out in the nick of time. Too bad there was a small leak in it though!! We dropped the boys off and chatted for a bit with my parents, then we hit the road and made it back to Myrtle Point at about 9:30 pm. Oh, I forgot to mention that on this vacation we didn't forget our traditional stop at Olive Pit! They've got the best milkshakes now! And I can't forget to give my parents a special thanks for watching my stinky dogs for us while we were gone. We traded boys for dogs! Dallas and Weston were a blast to spend time with. I can't believe how grown up they are now. They just turned 16 and are 6 foot tall now!! It feels like they tower over me.

I can't wait until our next vacation!! On April 11th we're off to Chicago for the weekend! I love Hyrum's business!