Tour of Orange County

Today we had a change of pace and took a guided tour of Orange County with our tour guides, the Taggart Family! Kevin had reserved a 12 person van, but all they had was a 15 person van so we had plenty of room for the 9 of us. We left around 9am from the Disneyland area and headed out to Newport Beach. We ate breakfast at a great 50's style diner at the end of the Newport Beach Pier. From there we looked around the Balboa Peninsula boardwalk before taking a little car ferry over to Balboa Island. It was a cute little beach community with neat little stores to shop in and pretty little neighborhoods to see. A 1,000 sq. ft. "beach cottage" runs you a couple of million dollars, if you have any extra money to spend. From there we headed to Huntington Beach to Jack's Surf Shop to buy some famous "Jack's" t-shirts for our Jack. Cole got a cool sweatshirt too. The last beach stop was Laguna Beach, where the ultra rich live. It was there that the kids were supposed to "get their feet wet" and play in the sand. The boys saw it a different way and before you knew it Jack was wet from getting water for his sand castle moat and Cole was literally body surfing in the waves. Only Kate could wear the clothes that she came in. Mary Kaye rescued Cole and Jack and had brought some extra clothes for her kids. Unfortunately the only thing that would fit Jack was a pair of Katie Taggart's purple sweatpants. We thought that he would be embarrassed but he told us that he looked like a "Rock Star". Good for him. We then headed up to a very fancy outdoor mall called Fashion Island in Laguna Beach, the Lane family looking like people thrown out of Wal Mart. While the girls were shopping, Kevin and I took Katie and the boys to a corner of the mall to watch the sunset. We were near an outside escalator that led down to the parking lot. The kids were riding the escalator for lack of better entertainment, while Kevin and I took pictures of the sunset (as opposed to supervising our children). What we didn't see was Jack sitting on the escalator steps riding it up from the bottom, backwards. When he reached the top, his pants got caught in the escalator and ripped his pants and underwear off of his body and pinned one of his ankles to the top of the escalator. With no visible emergency shut-off button in site, Kevin and I tried to get him free. Finally, we removed his shoe and let the machine keep his pants. All that remained was a torn leg of the purple sweatpants and shredded underwear. He was majorly freaked out (as well as the adults) and he swore to never again ride an escalator again. He has a couple of puncture wounds on his bum, but is otherwise unharmed. Teresa bought him a pair of cheap ($32) sweatpants to wear home (no Wal Mart in this mall). Our last stop was to Mary Kaye's old neighborhood in Tustin, CA near Anaheim. We ate a great dinner at their favorite Mexican restaurant before heading home. We eventually made it back to the hotel around 9pm, where we all crashed. Tomorrow we plan to swim at the Grand Californian with the Taggarts and then head on over to California Adventure before the Taggarts leave for home in Puyallup. Gates open at 10am!

Our 15 person limo and our chauffeur, Kevin.

Newport Beach. Not as crowded as I expected.

This is what the locals consider a car ferry. Not exactly a Washington State Ferry, eh?

He wanted to take this home, but it wouldn't get past airport security. Besides, they spelled his name wrong.

Two old guys on a bench.

Who needs Disneyland when you have sand castles?

As the local Californians looked on wearing fur lined parkas and stocking hats, the two Washington natives undressed for a swim in the Pacific Ocean.

Miss Laguna Beach poses for her photo shoot.

The now infamous purple pants. We kept the shredded remaining pant leg as a souvenir of the trip.

This was the exact moment the escalator grabbed Jack by the pants. From Ooooooo... to AAAAAAAA!!!