It hit me on my last day of vacation; I'm officially star struck. I met one of my favorite actors this evening and squealed like a 15 year old girl. But the experience turned out to be the perfect Hollywood send-off. It was the cherry on top of this California trip. Our last day started innocently enough. My son really wanted to go back to Disney's Soda Fountain on Hollywood Blvd. for ice cream, and we had a $5/off coupon a stranger handed us on the street, so we splurged and went there for lunch. After eating, we headed across the [View Full Entry]

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Last night, one of my boys was so excited to be at the beach he wet his pants. I'm not going to say which one, in case he ever gets a look at this blog, but let's just say he's old enough to know better. We only had a few minutes until the sun went down, and when he started playing in the sand he didn't want to take time out for a bathroom break. With that kind of enthusiasm from the kids, how could we not take them back to Santa Monica Pier today? We arrived mid morning and they [View Full Entry]

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So we did this trip for around $1800 total. I lost track of how much we spent flying home in the airport. We bought snacks during our layover. Staying with my sister in law and driving her car were big money savers. For those of you following along, here are our final spending totals by category: Attractions/Parking: Disney's El Capitan Theater (1 adult/1 child) $33 Disneyland tickets (2 adults/1 child, twins free) $206 Disneyland parking (2 days) $24 Aquarium of the Pacific (2 adults/3 kids using the Entertainment book coupon) $47.85 Parking at Aquarium of the Pacific $7 Santa Monica Pier [View Full Entry]

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After staying at Disneyland all day yesterday, we too exhausted to do much of anything today. So we spent a lazy Sunday sight seeing. My husband took his Ipod and his sister's bike and rode around the city, while my sister-in-law drove the kids and I up and down Mullholland Drive. Then we spent some time in Beverly Hills. We parked and walked Rodeo Drive. I felt underdressed just walking down the sidewalks in front of some of those stores...Harry Winston, Versace, Jimmy Choo. We drove around looking at houses in the Hancock neighborhood, Mulholland area and a few in Beverly [View Full Entry]

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Since it's their birthday, my twins got in free at Disneyland today. We planned to spend the whole day there so we woke up early to get ready to go. I wanted to pack a lunch in our cooler to take with us, but I ran into a snafu at the house. The food we were going to take with us was unavailable on the morning of our trip, so we had to leave without a lunch. That meant our Disney budget was blown right from the beginning. Food is incredibly expensive in the parks. Although the official word is you're [View Full Entry]

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The first sign I'd lost my mind in Los Angeles was choosing to stand in a 50 minute line at Pink's Hot Dogs (www.pinkshollywood.com) at 1:00am in the morning. We'd just gotten off the plane and my sister in law was driving us home when we passed the hot dog stand of the stars. We were too excited to go to sleep so we pulled over and got in line. Sheer craziness. I don't even stand in 50 minute lines at Disneyworld! The hot dogs were expensive and I didn't think they tasted any different than other chili dogs I've had [View Full Entry]

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I have to apologize to Los Angelians everywhere. I was the driver of the teeny tiny toy car doing 35mph on the freeway this afternoon. Despite being directionally challenged, I ventured out on the LA roads by myself to take my sons to a taping of Wheel of Fortune. We left West Hollywood at 10am. Even though my GPS said it would only be a 20 minute drive, I didn't make it to Sony Studios until almost 11:15. You might be thinking I got stuck in the infamous LA traffic, but you would be wrong. I'm just slow. I signed up [View Full Entry]

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Look out Hollywood, here we come! Our family vacation this year is super cheap. Who am I kidding? All our vacations are super cheap...but this one is more so. We are flying cross country, spending eight days in Los Angeles and I won't spend more than $1750. As always, I'll blog about what I spend, and where I spend it, to give readers ideas for their own budget vacations. Our first budget decision was airfare. We didn't decide to go to LA until after we saw how low we could get the plane tickets. We thought we'd possibly be driving to [View Full Entry]

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This year's White House Easter Egg Roll wasn't all that it was cracked up to be (forgive the shameless pun). I'm about to walk a delicate line here and attempt to give an honest review of the event without coming off whiny or ungrateful. But since I'm not that good of a writer, please read this review in the context of my travel blog; it's a planning resource for families who want to try what we do in the future. I'm not writing with a spirit of negativity, just trying to inform. Let's talk about the basics: 1. Tickets- I wrote [View Full Entry]

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I decided at the last minute to take the kids somewhere fun during the Christmas vacation. Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Canada is an indoor water park about 30 minutes from our house but we've never been there before. Lots of kids from my area talk about visiting Splash Lagoon with their families, which is also a waterpark a little further away in Erie, PA. Ever the budget traveler, I decided we'd go to the cheaper of the two and I'm so happy that it turned out to be Great Wolf Lodge. I'm on the mailing list for Splash Lagoon [View Full Entry]

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