December 1st -- Hey kids... Uncle Scott and his family are flying into SL tomorrow morning early to go to a karate tournament. Do you want to surprise them and go out to the airport and take them out to breakfast? You do... good! Ok, let's get some clothes set out tonight and we have to go to bed early so we aren't too tired in the morning. Oh and Scott would like to know if Josh and Jordan can borrow the gameboys so get those charged and get them out. And Lauren, make sure you get your camera so we can take a picture of their surprised faces when we get there.
So I've always considered myself a very honest person, but in this case I couldn't believe what a great set of lies I had just laid out. In one discussion I managed to get our family ready to get up early (4:30 am to be precise) and start out on our Hess Family Hawaii Christmas vacation.
Ok... so it was months in the planning (I think we started about March). Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Adams and a generous timeshare, we had a chance to go to Hawaii this year. Dave decided we for sure needed to go when it was colder weather in Utah and Adam and Stacey and Bethany are all at BYU Hawaii so why not go in December. And... let's not tell the kids anything about it ...and let's really surprise them and fly to Disneyland for a day first and then fly to Hawaii.
Airplane tickets, rental cars, Disneyland tickets, hotels, emails back and forth, rides to the airport (thanks Sterling... I owe you), getting the girls homework, stopping the mail, not being able to go to Colonial Days, piano and everything else. For months now we've had to plan that we would really be here December 2nd -- 11th and somehow we did manage to keep it a surprise.
December 1 -- 5:00 pm: After months of work I almost got busted. Kenzi got in the car to go to piano and jumped in the back... what did she see, her math book I had snuck over to the school to get. She asked me what her math book was doing in the back... I told her she brought it home and it fell out of her backpack. She looked at me kind of strangely and then said 'ok.' Whew, that was close!
December 1 -- 9:00 pm: After a fun evening at the neighborhood Christmas party we all come home and go to be quickly -- remember, Uncle Scott is coming in the morning.
December 1 -- 11:00 pm: Cameron and Kenzi fast asleep -- Lauren comes upstairs saying she doesn't feel good and thinks she is sick. Ok...can't happen. Dave and I are too excited and way to much has gone into this trip!
December 2 -- 12:30 am: Lauren still saying she doesn't feel great and she doesn't think she will be able to go to the airport in the morning. Ok so the first clue that I've not been really honest. I finally tell Lauren that she can't be sick in the morning because we are really going on a trip,we aren't going to the airport to see Scott. Of course, Lauren is totally freaking out and wants to know where we are going. She finally falls asleep and 4:00 am comes really, really early!!!
December 2 -- 4:30 am: Wake up kids! Hurry we've got to get to the airport -- no we aren't going to see Scott, we are really going on a trip. I think it was so early and they were so confused that they really weren't sure if we were serious or not.
At that point Lauren saw an email from Adam that said Hess Hawaii. She starting jumping up and down and up and down saying we are going to see Bethany, we are going to Hawaii. I told her I promise we aren't going to Hawaii today (which we weren't we were really going to LA to Disneyland). On the way to the airport everyone made their predictions. Lauren said Hawaii, Cameron said Washington to see uncle Scott (who says now Cam is his favorite since he was his 1st choice) and Kenzi said Disneyland and Aunt Cathy was her choice. When we got to the airport the girls saw LA and they were so excited to go to Disneyland (although Cameron was still mad we weren't going to see uncle Scott). I really think the kids weren't sure if we were really going someplace or not until we took off on the airplane.
We had a great plane ride and despite some really hyper excited kids (Cameron just kept saying "this is awesome, this is awesome, this is so awesome!!") they all managed to have a short nap on the plane.
December 2 -- 7:00 am: On the ground, off to get the rental car, quick stop at McDonalds and off to Disneyland.
December 2 -- 9:00 am - 6:00 pm: How fun is Disneyland?!?!?!? Everytime I go I forget how much I love it... especially when there are absolutely nooooo lines (we just loved walking right on Indiana Jones and Pirates and the Jungle Ride) and who doesn't love Its a Small World all decked out in Christmas attire (Jingle Shells in the Hawaii room) and Christmas trees in the Haunted House. The Christmas Light parade brought tears to my eyes (surprise, surprise) and somehow they transformed the entire place to feel very festive!
Great Uncle Ray was able to get us park hopper passes so we had gotten to so many rides at Disneyland so we even got to run over to California Adventure as well. Lauren and Dave absolutely loved the roller coaster and Cam, Kenzi and I loved the new Toy Story 3-D ride... very cool. We even went on Soaring Over California. That is the coolest ride!!!!! I must admit I think I was more scared than Cameron and Kenzi -- it really kind of freaked me out!
And to end a fabulous day... we discovered that it is a small world on "It's a Small World." We were walking through the lines to get on the ride and we looked back and saw our niece Jenny Jones and their two kids -- the ones that had just stayed at our house a few weeks back. They live in So. California and have passes and she had decided to go to Disneyland for the afternoon/evening. Amazing we would run into them. We all got to go through the ride together (Dave' favorite but he went because Cameron loved it so much and Dave made him go on Indiana Jones and we thought it was only fair for him to then go on Cameron's favorite).
After a little sun (it was pretty overcast), lots of fun, a little too much food (Dave and Lauren loved the turkey legs) the day was over. The kids were too tired to stay for fireworks so we headed back to the hotel and off to bed.
December 2 -- 9:00 pm: So we had so much fun surprising the kids we decided to keep it up for one more day. We told the kids that the next morning we would go to the beach so we needed to get to bed early... we just didn't tell them the beach would be in Waikiki, Hawaii!
So I've always considered myself a very honest person, but in this case I couldn't believe what a great set of lies I had just laid out. In one discussion I managed to get our family ready to get up early (4:30 am to be precise) and start out on our Hess Family Hawaii Christmas vacation.
Ok... so it was months in the planning (I think we started about March). Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Adams and a generous timeshare, we had a chance to go to Hawaii this year. Dave decided we for sure needed to go when it was colder weather in Utah and Adam and Stacey and Bethany are all at BYU Hawaii so why not go in December. And... let's not tell the kids anything about it ...and let's really surprise them and fly to Disneyland for a day first and then fly to Hawaii.
Airplane tickets, rental cars, Disneyland tickets, hotels, emails back and forth, rides to the airport (thanks Sterling... I owe you), getting the girls homework, stopping the mail, not being able to go to Colonial Days, piano and everything else. For months now we've had to plan that we would really be here December 2nd -- 11th and somehow we did manage to keep it a surprise.
December 1 -- 5:00 pm: After months of work I almost got busted. Kenzi got in the car to go to piano and jumped in the back... what did she see, her math book I had snuck over to the school to get. She asked me what her math book was doing in the back... I told her she brought it home and it fell out of her backpack. She looked at me kind of strangely and then said 'ok.' Whew, that was close!
December 1 -- 9:00 pm: After a fun evening at the neighborhood Christmas party we all come home and go to be quickly -- remember, Uncle Scott is coming in the morning.
December 1 -- 11:00 pm: Cameron and Kenzi fast asleep -- Lauren comes upstairs saying she doesn't feel good and thinks she is sick. Ok...can't happen. Dave and I are too excited and way to much has gone into this trip!
December 2 -- 12:30 am: Lauren still saying she doesn't feel great and she doesn't think she will be able to go to the airport in the morning. Ok so the first clue that I've not been really honest. I finally tell Lauren that she can't be sick in the morning because we are really going on a trip,we aren't going to the airport to see Scott. Of course, Lauren is totally freaking out and wants to know where we are going. She finally falls asleep and 4:00 am comes really, really early!!!
December 2 -- 4:30 am: Wake up kids! Hurry we've got to get to the airport -- no we aren't going to see Scott, we are really going on a trip. I think it was so early and they were so confused that they really weren't sure if we were serious or not.
At that point Lauren saw an email from Adam that said Hess Hawaii. She starting jumping up and down and up and down saying we are going to see Bethany, we are going to Hawaii. I told her I promise we aren't going to Hawaii today (which we weren't we were really going to LA to Disneyland). On the way to the airport everyone made their predictions. Lauren said Hawaii, Cameron said Washington to see uncle Scott (who says now Cam is his favorite since he was his 1st choice) and Kenzi said Disneyland and Aunt Cathy was her choice. When we got to the airport the girls saw LA and they were so excited to go to Disneyland (although Cameron was still mad we weren't going to see uncle Scott). I really think the kids weren't sure if we were really going someplace or not until we took off on the airplane.
We had a great plane ride and despite some really hyper excited kids (Cameron just kept saying "this is awesome, this is awesome, this is so awesome!!") they all managed to have a short nap on the plane.
December 2 -- 7:00 am: On the ground, off to get the rental car, quick stop at McDonalds and off to Disneyland.
December 2 -- 9:00 am - 6:00 pm: How fun is Disneyland?!?!?!? Everytime I go I forget how much I love it... especially when there are absolutely nooooo lines (we just loved walking right on Indiana Jones and Pirates and the Jungle Ride) and who doesn't love Its a Small World all decked out in Christmas attire (Jingle Shells in the Hawaii room) and Christmas trees in the Haunted House. The Christmas Light parade brought tears to my eyes (surprise, surprise) and somehow they transformed the entire place to feel very festive!
Great Uncle Ray was able to get us park hopper passes so we had gotten to so many rides at Disneyland so we even got to run over to California Adventure as well. Lauren and Dave absolutely loved the roller coaster and Cam, Kenzi and I loved the new Toy Story 3-D ride... very cool. We even went on Soaring Over California. That is the coolest ride!!!!! I must admit I think I was more scared than Cameron and Kenzi -- it really kind of freaked me out!
And to end a fabulous day... we discovered that it is a small world on "It's a Small World." We were walking through the lines to get on the ride and we looked back and saw our niece Jenny Jones and their two kids -- the ones that had just stayed at our house a few weeks back. They live in So. California and have passes and she had decided to go to Disneyland for the afternoon/evening. Amazing we would run into them. We all got to go through the ride together (Dave' favorite but he went because Cameron loved it so much and Dave made him go on Indiana Jones and we thought it was only fair for him to then go on Cameron's favorite).
After a little sun (it was pretty overcast), lots of fun, a little too much food (Dave and Lauren loved the turkey legs) the day was over. The kids were too tired to stay for fireworks so we headed back to the hotel and off to bed.
December 2 -- 9:00 pm: So we had so much fun surprising the kids we decided to keep it up for one more day. We told the kids that the next morning we would go to the beach so we needed to get to bed early... we just didn't tell them the beach would be in Waikiki, Hawaii!
