We arrived at our hotel, the Homewood Suites in Anaheim (which I would recommend to anyone with small children based on the two separated rooms and small included kitchen area) on Saturday during mid afternoon.
After a quick local grocery shopping trip at Vans, Trevor took a nap in the hotel while I took Charlie to a local park about 3 blocks from the hotel for a little play time since we'd been in the car for so many hours. He loved it, and we even made a couple friends while we were there. We did learn that the park was in a semi-sketchy area of town, but I never once felt unsafe, which was nice. Compared to Utah, which starts to get chilly in mid-September, Anaheim was nice and toasty warm, and after playing at the park Charlie had pink cheeks from all the heat. One of his favorite things to do at the park (and everywhere, for that matter) is spin the wheels/cranks that made the gears move.
Trevor and I had previously arranged to have a babysitter meet us at the hotel early that evening so we could have a date night out to the Dodger's game in Los Angeles. How lucky are we to get a babysitter through a personal recommendation in a town where we don't even live!? :) Once we navigated through SO MUCH TRAFFIC to get to L.A., we parked easily and made our way towards the game. The major "fail" of the night was neglecting to buy tickets ahead of time and trying to hunt down ticket scalpers. We ended up paying quite a bit because the game (vs the San Francisco Giants) was completely sold out. Plus we didn't have cash and these guys don't take credit cards. So, the scalper sent Trevor into the stadium with one of the tickets (on his honor) so he could get to the ATM for some cash. I waited outside with the scalper and my ticket. After talking with the scalper, he informed me that Trevor would not be able to leave the stadium and re-enter since the ticket had already been scanned, and would just need to send the cash through the fence to me. I tried calling him and texting him to let him know, but he didn't answer. Next thing I knew he was OUTSIDE the gates with the cash! I figured someone had let him out knowing the situation and that he would get back in just fine. I went through with my ticket no problem, but I soon realized that Trevor wasn't behind me. When they scanned his ticket, they told him that it had already been used and he couldn't enter. I freaked out... we just paid a lot of money for these tickets!! I went up to the ticket taker and tried to help explain the situation to him, but he wasn't having it. Fortunately, by some sort of mercy, he decided to trust us and let Trevor go back in. Whew. What a stressful way to enter a game! Moral of the story: buy tickets ahead of time!
We enjoyed the game from our seats on the front row of the second section up, down the 3rd base line. They were pretty awesome seats! Each of us enjoyed a "Dodger Dog" and Trevor even let me buy a blue Dodger foam finger! Yay :)
After the game, Trevor was really craving tacos from a real-live, legitimate taco truck. We hunted one down using Yelp and enjoyed some really DELICIOUS food! Mmmmm!
The next day was Sunday and we found a local ward that met about 10 minutes from our hotel at 11am. Charlie was so tired from all the fun we'd been having that he fell asleep on the way to church and even stayed asleep as we walked in. He slept through about half of Sacrament meeting looking just like this:
Later, after church, we donned our swimming gear and headed down to Newport Beach for some beach action and dinner. With all the wind and cold water, it was a bit chilly, but that didn't stop Charlie from LOVING every minute of it!
I just love doing vacations with my little family! Soon to come, tales of our adventures in Disneyland!!
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