Home from vacation

Hi, I'm back!
We just spent the last 10 days on Vacation in southern California! (Well, actually only 6 days there, the other 4 were spent driving to and from.)
It was such a great trip! We went to all the touristy spots. Universal studios, Sea World, and 3 days at Disneyland/California adventure.
We have had enough of Disney to last us for several years.
The weather was perfect, and the crowds weren't too bad. The older kids were even willing to go on all the fun rides with us. It took a while to convince Aaron to ride space mountain and California Screamin', but after that, we couldn't get him off. Brielle(9) was willing to ride everything once, and CJ(12) loved everything.
Max, on the other hand, was totlly freaked out by all of the characters walking around in the parks. (I should have expected this. He was, after all completely traumatized by the "Tickle me "Elmo" he got for his birthday)
Max was O.K. until the characters got about 2 feet away from him, then he started screaming. Poor kid. Even Santa scared him. All I wanted was a really cute picture of Max sitting on Santa's lap. Instead, we have a photo of me standing a few feet away from Santa holding Max who is screaming hysterically.
Also, for weeks before we went on our trip, Max said he wanted to fly on the Elephants. (Dumbo) We stood in line for 30 minutes, the whole time he was so excited, "I go up high in the air wif efephants" then when I went to put him in Dumbo, he started screaming "I can't ride, I can't ride". So I handed him to Daddy, and rode by myself.
Oh well.
Max did really like meeting Mickey, and for some reason Sully from Monsters inc. didn't scare him a bit. Go figure.
The great thing about this trip is that I was able to combine my two favorite things, Christmas and Disneyland. Everything was decorated for Christmas, and Christmas music played throughout the parks.
The last day we were there, we woke up to a downpour of rain, and 30mph wind gusts. This was the day we had planned to go to Sea World. The weather cleared up a while later, and we went to Sea World wearing our winter coats. The park was practically deserted, it was so great! No lines for anything. The highlight of the day was feeding and petting the dolphins. It was so cool!
I learned a few things on this trip.
1. I will never again travel without the portable DVD player. It kept the kids entertained, and we had very few fights along the way.
2. As far as I am concerned, the Onstar turn by turn navigation system is one of the greatest inventions of all time. I am so amazed by this technology. I didn't need to look at a map, and give directions the entire trip. It got us where we needed to go every time.
3. Even if your toddler seems really tired, and you are only staying in the hotel for one night, and you think carrying the travel yard clear up to the hotel room for him to sleep in is going to be more trouble than it's worth, and you are sure the toddler will probably be able to sleep in the bed with you just for one night, because, really he is a very good sleeper, and again he looks really tired.............BRING THE TRAVEL YARD!!!!! Because, otherwise, you will end up with your darling offspring jumping on your face all night long.
Trust me on this one.