Sara really struggled with being grouchy the whole trip. She's going through this whole "middle child" thing these days. I went through that when I was a kid, so I totally understand. She wants so desperately to feel special and important, and is struggling to find her place in this family. At Disneyland she was frustrated that she was too big to sit in the stroller, yet too little to get to push it around (because while Savannah could be trusted to push, Sara had a hard time not running into strangers' heels). She wanted to be big and brave enough to ride all the big rides, but is still young enough to be scared of that stuff still. And so this is what Sara looked like in a lot of our pictures:
The very last day, she was in an especially bad mood and was really picking on Aaron. She had already spent her souvenir money from Grandma Jo on a shirt, but had spotted a Jasmine piggy bank that she really wanted. That morning, I pulled her aside and made a deal with her. If she would try to be her very happiest and enjoy our last day there, I would buy her the piggy bank. It worked. She had a smile on her face the rest of the day, and was thrilled when she got that piggy bank later in the day. I just wish I'd thought of that on day one.
The other "hiccup" in our trip was the day after we rented the car to go to the beach. We rented the car on Thursday, went to the beach that day, then drove to Disneyland the next morning and returned the car. Much later in the day (after the rental car place had closed), Scott realized he had left the garage door opener in the car when we returned it. I immediately started stressing about how we were going to get it back.
Then we returned home that night and Savannah typed the code into the key pad on the door. The door had a locking deadbolt that unlocked with a code from the outside. After a few times of trying, she turned and said, "It's not working". Scott stepped up to give it a try, then turned to me with a serious look on his face and said, "It's locked." I wasn't sure what he meant. He explained that he had been locking the door handle from the inside at nights because it's just habit for him to lock things up as securely as possible at night. It hadn't been a problem before because we always went out the front door and had to unlock the handle to get out. That morning, though, we had gone out through the garage, so the handle hadn't gotten unlocked. And we had returned the garage door opener with the car. So we were locked out. Really locked out. Luckily, I had left the upstairs window open. So Scott climbed on the brick wall surrounding the patio, got onto the roof, pried the screen out of the window, and climbed in. We were saved.
The next morning we woke up early and called the rental car place right as it opened. They hadn't found the garage door opener when they cleaned the car, and it was already rented out again. This was Saturday. We were going home the next morning, so we had to get the garage door opener back that day. I started doing internet searches for how to program a new garage door opener and for hardware stores in the area. I figured we'd have to rent another car to drive to the hardware store, and we'd spend our entire last day trying to replace this garage door opener. Scott called the rental car place back and asked if there was any way to find out if the people who had rented the car were still in the area. The nice guy at the rental car place told Scott to hold on. When he got back on the phone, he said he'd called the people, they had found the opener, and would drop it by the rental car place that day before noon. We were saved--again.
So aside from a lockout, a lost garage door opener, and some grouchies, we had a great trip.
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