The Uboldi Family: Day 5

Sunday night Dylan and Preston slept on a twin blowup mattress in our bedroom and fell asleep watching a DVD. Oh the horrible mess I have created for myself this week. It is taking me forever to undo the damage of lax rules allowed on vacation with young children. But it was so worth it. The original plan was to go to Sea World as a group early in the week - probably Monday - because our tickets let us in twice. Then those of us going to Disneyland would go there and then eventually those going to Legoland would go. Tentatively Sea World (M), Disneyland (T), Sea World (W) and Legoland (Th). No we did not hit the lottery people. We found some 2 for 1 passes online to Legoland so Amy and I decided to send the dads with our boys. I knew Dylan would die if he didn't get to go. And I'm so glad we did. Oh, and for those who don't know, we volunteered to get our Disneyland passes and just had to purchase Preston's. It was still a big expense, but without volunteering, finding coupons and getting discount tickets from my cousin, we wouldn't have been able to pay for three parks in one trip.

This is pretty much what happened every night. One or the other kid would fall asleep first and the other would eventually drift off while watching a movie on the portable DVD player. I love how Dylan is laying on Preston's arm here. So cute!

I went in 20 minutes later and found Dylan's face plastered to the DVD player. He was completely out. Funny!

Monday morning Amy woke up feeling really sick. Kylie had a rough night as well, but wasn't in as bad of shape as her mom. Amy spent the entire day with a stomach bug that kept her close to a bucket and a bathroom. So instead of Sea World, we decided the best thing to do would be to send the men and older kids (except Gabi) to Legoland. I was feeling a bit cooped up by this point. I was really ready to get out and start the theme park part of the vacation, but it was obviously the best choice for everyone. I was probably just tired of chasing Preston though. :) I almost sent him to Legoland, but I'm so glad I decided not too. Instead I just let him be a couch potato again and run a couple errands with me. We went to Costco and to get gas - big day for us! :) It was so much better that way though. The older kids and dads, no strollers, no grumpy tired little ones. Preston would have cramped their style for sure. Plus without him they were able to squeeze into one car for the drive.

I made Marcos promise to take millions of pictures, sad I was missing my "baby's" first real amusement park experience. And that he did. He took tons of pictures of crazy kids posing and playing and getting soaked in the rain. They had a blast! Marcos lost his wallet and called to tell me about it. I was sitting in the car reading because Preston had fallen asleep when I was driving home and I didn't dare move him inside for fear he would wake up. I had a major panic moment and did the only thing I could think of - prayed. I have to say that the whole day was a bit overwhelming. The excitement of going to Sea World, the low of finding out it would be a day at home for the girls, feeling so bad for Amy and trying to figure out how to help, running errands, hitting a pole in the van while trying to get gas (everything was fine, but still), finding out Marcos had lost his wallet, finding out later that someone had found it on a ride and turned it in (cash and all)... I broke down for a minute AFTER the wallet had been found. Stupid, I know, but I was feeling so grateful and undeserving of such a blessing. And it was just a long day for those of us at home. Laura couldn't figure out why I was crying after the wallet was found and not before. Who knows? Hormones...blame everything on hormones, right?

A little later in the afternoon, I could tell Gabi was pretty bored and it had stopped raining so I decided to take Preston to the park and offered to take Gabi with me as well. It took a total of 30 seconds to tell Kylie knew what was going on and was about to be sad so I offered to take her along too. Especially with a helper like Gabi, I knew I could handle the partners in crime at the park. Milli wasn't feeling well and didn't want to be away from her mom even during mealtime preparations so I figured she probably wanted to stay home. Poor thing! Turns out she had a double ear infection - no wonder she was so miserable the first few days. Well, I didn't get lost and the kids had so much fun. We were there longer than I thought we would be. Some other mom was there with her baby and was pretty chatty so I talked to her while the kids were playing. The guys got home from Legoland and Marcos called to make sure we were fine. I'm sure he thought it was weird we were just gone at the park and assumed we were lost or had been abducted. Nope, we just needed to get out (at least I did).

We went back, had another delicious meal, said a lot of prayers for the sick people (and prayers that the rest of the group wouldn't catch anything) and put the kids to bed.

Here are some of the MANY pictures I had to choose from. Ahhh... he really DOES listen to me! :)