California-Here I come!!

[Johnie]

We're going to California!! This will be our first trip to the Sunshine State....in fact, it's our first trip west of the Mississippi River.

It all started with a JCPenney's and Dockers promotion to get a free airline ticket. I got my mom a free ticket to Vegas and that went fine. I STILL haven't managed to get my free ticket

Our cast of characters include:

Me-36, Lover of all things Disney and Walt. VERY excited to go to the Mother Land :p
Alysia-17, my California girl at heart. Has an obsessive need to visit Marilyn Monroe's grave
Jordan- will be 17 when we travel, my other daughter and Alysia's twin. Always up for an adventure with us

We were originally supposed to go to Disneyland in May. However, the school put an end to that trip. They said Alysia had missed too many days of school and although she has A's and B's, is on the Honor Roll and has passed all of her SOL tests with flying colors, they said if she missed anymore days of school then they would take away her credit.

We are flying American from Norfolk, VA in the evening of Aug. 12, 2008. WE fly into LAX. I *think* we are renting a car. I have a GPS in my head so don't worry about driving in new places.

We're staying at the Travelodge International. I got this via Priceline. I am not too happy with this choice of accomodations. I may try to book something else but I don't know yet. We truly don't spend too much time in our room......

We're meeting family that lives in CA for dinner one evening. We were going to spend longer with them but they have a bowling tournament in Vegas that weekend.

I called today and booked the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour for 9:30am on Aug 14th!! I am soooooo excited!!!!! They give AAA members a 20% discount as well. I didn't know that so I am even more excited to have save money ::

I haven't made any ADR's yet. I have no idea where we want to eat. Quite frankly, none of the restaurants sound too promising but that may be cause my tummy hurts right now

We're off one day to visit Marilyn Monroe's grave and off to another cemetary to see Walt's grave. Jordan is a HUGE Lucille Ball fan....unfortunately they moved her burial site to her hometown in New York a few years ago or else we would be going to visit her as well. We plan to visit the Walk of Fame as well.

There is also this tour of the beaches we're going to go on as well. The bus is decked out like a Woody car and Alysia is beyond excited about that!

We fly home on Aug 19th back to Richmond.

Those are our plans thus far....we've got a little less than a month to go!