Life and Times of The Johnston family: Family Vacation Day One....Surprise!

Thursday February 5th I finished packing up the van(Tony did most of it the night before) and after a 15 minute mad search for Lovey(that had me frustrated to the MAX!) we left the house later than I had wanted, to pick up Tony from work. We picked him up about 4:20, stopped to top off the gas tank then drove to Pasyon while the kids just played in their seats with their seat trays which are the best "for the car" investment we had ever made! They make traveling in the car SOOOO much easier! At Payson we drove through at McDonald's and got dinner, and got the kids set up watching a movie. We then drove to Primm which took another like 4 or 5 hours(I'm sure we made a potty stop in there somewhere but that's not all that important) and the kids just watched movies. Devin fell asleep during the last movie and Elizabeth was so very ready to get out of the car by the time we got to our hotel after 11. The kids fell asleep easy though! Elizabeth got us up nice and early, so we were ready to go by 7. We sat the kids on the bed and surprised them with the announcement that we were not actually going to Las Vegas for our Vacation but were driving on to California to go to DISNEYLAND!!! They were THRILLED! To say the least!! We stopped for gas, had breakfast in the car, and went to the Howard Johnson(which was about 4 hours away) just down the street from Disneyland. (this will be our go to hotel from now on, it was so nice!) They even had a room ready for us! (we had called after we made the reservation to tell them we would arrive early and asked if we could leave our car and luggage....we didn't know they'd have the room ready for us though!)It was great! We brought our stuff in while the kids had fun checking out the room. Our kiddos LOVE hotel rooms! Then we went to Downtown Disney for our lunch reservation at Rainforest Cafe. Two things we learned for when we go back. 1)Both kids, but especially Elizabeth need noise reducing headphones. 2)DO NOT sit by the gorillas, they scared the crap out of our kids! They had to stare at the elephants across the way during the "storm". But other than that it's a fantastic place to eat! After lunch we went to Disney's California Adventure and the fist thing we did was set up a DAS pass for Devin(next time we'll get one for Elizabeth as well, so she can go on roller coasters, Devin doesn't want to. Her SPD and Anxiety qualify her for the pass as well, we just didn't realize they'd need their own). That pass was an absolute lifesaver! It's not a line jumper, we still had to wait, we just didn't have to wait in the normal line. We had a return time scanned on our passes and would go through the exit or handicap entrance to be admitted onto the ride. We did still wait a lot of the time but it was usually just a few minutes. The longest we had to wait was the 2nd time we went on Radiator Springs Racers which was about a 20 minute wait(the actual wait time was like 90 minutes), and our kids nearly lost it! So the pass made our trip a success! The cast members were so good with our kids as well! They gave Devin an Honerary Citizen badge and Elizabeth a Cinderella Happily Ever After badge, and their own maps while Tony was getting the pass set up. I must say Disneyland really brought out the Autism in Devin...really it just made us notice it more, as he's not in those types of places and scenarios very often at home in our day to day life. He didn't hardly talk(to anyone other than us), he often used me to talk with people(telling me what he had to say instead of the person talking to him), he had no nails left by the end as he was chewing on them constantly. In fact we noticed a lot of nervous habits coming out in Devin. He loved the characters, but didn't ever talk to them(unless he had doggie then he talked through doggie), Elizabeth did most of the talking for him(they have a very symbiotic relationship in that aspect, Devin hates talking to people and Elizabeth cant get enough!) Elizabeth did have trouble with the noise there, and often had her ears covered or had headphones on. The busyness and over stimulation came out big time in her anxiety, and she lost it several times, as did Devin. But actually overall they both did much better than we anticipated. We never had to leave the park due to a meltdown and we really thought we would have to....more than once. Anywho I'm not going to bore you with a play by play of each day. I'll let the pictures do the talking, I'll just fill in things I didn't get pictures of.(I've decided I'm going back to a point and shoot camera as I just don't like how big and bulky our camera is. I've missed being able to put it in and pull it out of a pocket, and I just use the one we have as a point and shoot anyway). For this trip I used my phone when the camera wasn't accessible.

Telling the kids our secret!

This could be an Autism awareness video. Notice the vast difference in their reactions! Elizabeth looks at us and celebrates "with us", using words to express her feelings and thoughts with us. She runs to hug me sharing a connection with me. Devin barely utters a word when I pull it from him! He jumps but not really from happiness but because Liz is, he's just following her lead(as he often does) And he avoids eye contact at all costs!(especially when I try to engage with him) FYI he was just as thrilled as Elizabeth.

The "super fun, awesome" hotel room!

At Disneyland!!

Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe

While waiting in line to see Pluto the kids watched a man decorate the rice crispy snowflakes.

Mickey mouse!

On our way to Toy Story Mania, I had to capture this beautiful scene!

We also had to stop to chat with Donald Duck! He is Tony's favorite and this was his first time meeting him!!

Then we made it to Toy Story Midway Mania. We promised Devin he could go on a Buzz ride first and foremost! It was thoroughly enjoyed by ALL!!

Then we checked out the awesome new(since the last time we were there) Carsland! It was amazing!!

Meeting Mater!

Luigi's Flying Tires(they are no more, they're changing it up)

Bug's Land!

Tuck and Roll's bumber cars!

Just waiting for daddy to get a ride return time for the Monsters Inc ride.

We didn't have to wait long!

We had snack while waiting for the Pixar parade!

Monster University

The Incredibles!

Finding Nemo

I think this was Bug's Life

Buzz! Toy Story!

Mater brought up the rear

After the parade wen went over and just made it in for the 6:30 Frozen sing along! Waiting was excruciating, but it was tons of fun! Elizabeth was in HEAVEN! She provided great entertainment for all those around us. We got several sweet comments, and Elizabeth was very gracious about the compliments on her voice. (I must say it is getting really good, since her lessons in her theater class)