5 more days until VACATION!!!!

That's right 5 more days until the vacation begins. It will begin sooner for a few of us. From what I know, Jason's family will be heading out to California on Tuesday. John's family will be going Friday morning. Lynne, Vernon and Sylvia's family will be going out Thursday night. Vern and I will be going out Friday afternoon. I think Degen and Brianna will be going out Thursday or Friday?I hope everyone received my email with the property address and the ideas for room arrangements. If you look at the previous post there are pictures of most of the bedrooms and the big sectional couch is the one Degen will have.

Reminder~ there are six pads that can also be used to sleep if we need them and she has two pack n plays and high chairs. I don't know if we need the high chairs yet but she has them. Also check in time to the house is Saturday at 4:00 p.m. and check out is Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. I am not putting the exact address on here so check your email if you need the address.

Our tentative schedule looks like this but is definitely subject to change:

Saturday: 9:00 am. Meet up at a beach hang out, swim, play, eat etc... the beach is yet to be determined

4:00 p.m. check in to house get things unloaded/unpacked. Either hang out at the house or go to beach and have bonfire/cook at beach

Sunday: Not totally sure what everyone has planned for this day. Vern and I and our kids are going to Disneyland from about 8:00 a.m to about 4:00 p.m.

5:00 p.m.? Rodger and Leola are coming over for a BBQ and to hang out with the family.

9:00 p.m~ Kids are in bed hopefully and ladies night card games can begin. Not sure where we can play- maybe outside by the pool? So we don't wake anyone up? We'll just have to see. Can't wait. It's been too long since we've played together.

Monday 8:00 a.m. DISNEYLAND baby! This also needs more discussion. Do we want to kind of plan out the day or just go with the flow? We can talk about this Sat/Sun.

Tuesday 8:00 a.m get stuff packed and clean house. check out at 10:00 a.m.

mid-morning/afternoon- go to beach or Hollywood or somewhere before we all head back to AZ.

This vacation is going to be super fun. I really wanted to do something with the family so that my kids and your kids can have experiences and memories that will always be with them. I have special memories from childhood trips with my family that I am so thankful I have and I know the Perry children do too. I've come to realize that our memories and experiences are some of the only things that's can't be taken from us and that we have left when loved ones are gone. Not to make anyone sad or to think about sad things, but its something you may not think about until its too late.

On a lighter note, we are going to have an awesome time together being in California! The time has finally come for our vacation. When I first put the day counter on the blog it seemed so far away. 5 days until fun in the warm California sun!!!!

We Got The House

I have been meaning to post this but stuff keeps happening... We are one more step closer to our Perry family vacation!!! We got the house by Disneyland for three nights, June 4th, 5th, and 6th. The reservation fee was $500, which Lynne and Vernon paid. So, the rest of us owe them $83.00 per family. The rest of the money will be due April 4th. The total money owed after the reservation fee is $1401.00. This includes a $400 refundable deposit (if we don't due damage to the property and pay the rent) we will get this back within three weeks after we vacate the property. So everyone will owe $235.00 on April 4th. However, if nothing gets damaged or minus what does get damaged everyone should receive back around $66.00 (after the trip). I know its confusing, so if you have questions I can show it to you on paper.

We also talked about going out a day or so early or however many days people want and getting hotel rooms. We can think about this for awhile because no decision needs to be made right away about hotels. But be thinking about what you want to do.

This house is awesome. It can sleep 20 people and we will have 19. 16 Perry's and 3 Peotter's. Now, we can decide later about if someone gets a king bed or Degen having the living if people should pay more or less and give money back or something like that if we decide after April 4th. The house has 5 bedrooms that consist of:

Bedroom 1 - King bed
Bedroom 2- King bed
Bedroom 3- full bed & 2 twins (bunk beds)
Bedroom 4 - 4 twins (2 bunk beds)
Bedroom 5 - full bed with a twin trundle
Queen sleeper sofa in the living room- there is also another living room with big sectional couch
2 pack & plays
3 fold out foam mattresses with sheets & blankets.

I don't really have a preference how to divide up rooms or whatever, so think about what might work best for your family. The room with the 4 bunk beds might be good for John's boys/Jason's. Look at the pictures and see what you think. We could always draw out of hat or if someone wants to pay more for the king beds or say what you prefer.

Master with king bed

Room with full bed and twin trundle

Room with full bed and twin bunk beds

The twin bunk beds that go with the above picture

Pool in the backyard

Patio

Living room

Game room
Boy bunk bed room

Here is a website that has a video, more information and reviews. Here is one review that made think this was a good house:

http://www.vrbo.com/238450

We rented the home for a family vacation from Dec4-11 2009 for 17 of us in total. The house was perfect. Julie the owner has thought of everything. The kids rooms(we had 8 little ones with us) have toys, board games, blocks, everything you can think of, you dont need to bring anything. Then there is the garage that has been converted to a play room with a pool table and ping pong table, that everyone loved. They never even pulled out the rockband, they didnt have time. We even had a day where they didnt want to go to Disneyland, they wanted to stay home and play. The pool want fantastic, even tho we had horrible weather, the spa is great, really warm. The pool man keeps everything maintained so well. If anything goes wrong you phone Julie and she has it fixed right away, she leaves you here cell number. We needed extra strollers and she had 5 of them there for us, 3 high chairs, 2 play pens, it doesnt get any better than that. the house was spotless. It was really amazing that you didnt feel more cramped with that amount of people in it. I would highly advise looking at this place for a family vacation. As for walking to the park, if the weather had been nicer, we certainly would have done it. It is a bit far, but by the time you park, if we had taken the short cuts, it was almost the same distance to walk from the house, as it was to walk throught the parking lot, and then down to the shuttle. You could have walked through the side roads, then got on the shuttle , and save 14 dollars a day, it was just not nice enough out for us to do it. I would say you cant go wrong with this rental with a large group, or even with a smaller group, as you a near everything, wallmart,tons of malls, target, everything is 3 minutes away, quite,safe neighbourhood nice for walking, I could have stayed longer, just for a vaction not to see disneyland but just to visit california, and at some point we hope to return and rent the home to do just that with some of our friends.

We are so excited that we actually have the place reserved and now we can start planning what we want to do! Check-in time is 4:00 p.m. so it might be nice to go out a day early to get more fun in! I was also thinking that maybe Sunday or Monday would be the day we do our parks/whatever we want individually or together day. Lynne also had a great idea about having Leola and Roger over for a barbecue one night. We can get more into detail at a later time. Can't wait!

Picked a Date!!

We are finally moving along with our Perry beach house vacation! Yes!! The tentative date of the vacation for now is: Wednesday June 1, 2011 to Tuesday June 7, 2011. These dates seem to work best given that Memorial weekend is May 27-30th and then the summer prices go up after the second week in June. If any one has a problem with these dates and has other suggestions please let me know. I think its far enough in advance to kind of plan around these dates for things such as work, extracurricular activities and such.

Now on to the real issue here: picking a house

The Newport villas I mentioned on the previous post are more expensive then they advertised. I heard back today from the owner and for all 3 villas it will be $4,800, plus California tax and a cleaning fee. Bringing us to a grand total of $800 plus per family. Unfortunately we, meaning Vern and I cannot afford that. I'm thinking that like $500 can be the absolute max we can afford or we won't have any money for anything else such as gas, food, extras etc... I don't know how everybody else feels about the price of $800? I thought about maybe only getting two of the Villas and that would put us at $3600/600 per family. And two family's will not have bedrooms but a living room. Now, Degen is okay with a living room, but the rest of us all have children and I don't think Lynne and Vernon should have to sleep in a living room. $600 seems pretty expensive for not all of us to have a bedroom. I've searched and searched for properties in the Newport/Balboa area and there are very few with more than 4 bedrooms and if they do have 4 bedrooms they are usually around $5,000 or more a week.

I think a better option for us, is to find a more affordable house somewhere else if there is one. I inquired about several houses yesterday in different areas with at least five bedrooms. I found one in Encinitas that looks nice and the price is right. It is not right on the beach, but like one street away from it. You can look at the house on google earth. I am not familiar with Encinitas but it is in the San Diego area. This area has tons for us to do and you can still drive to other areas of California for sight seeing such as Newport for the day or Disneyland or Hollywood. Also Vernon has had his heart set on seeing the aircraft carrier (can't think of the name at the moment) and we will right by it.

The great part about this vacation is that we will be there seven days- plenty of time to do what ever we want. This house has five bedrooms, pool, hot tub, three bathrooms, full kitchen, 2 washers and 2 dryers, beach toys, beach umbrellas and chairs. Click below to go to the listing-

https://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/57561.html?cid=E_owner-inquiry_DB_O_2034_prop%20pg_text_LPROP

One of the bedrooms

Living room

Family room?

The price- $1700, plus 330 cleaning fee= $2030/338.00 per family. This sounds much more reasonable to me. After June 15, the price goes up to $2900 per week. I will forward you the emails I received so you all can view all the properties and amenities.

If any of you want to look for a house please do. Just remember to check the rate and the dates because I've found that it will be listed for one price and then have a higher price for summer and then even higher one for after the middle of June. Summertime is the peak season for California vacation rentals.

I will be forwarding the emails tonight so please check your email!! In the email if you scroll down to where it says inquiry property ######, under that there will be a link with a web address to click on and it will show you the listing. You can also use this website if you want to search for a house.

Please let me know what you think about the house in Encinitas as soon as possible so we can book this baby (if its what we want). If not, I'm sure we will find a different one. So look at all the emails and let me know what you think.

I think I Found It!!!!

Okay so I was getting kind of bummed looking for houses. It's so hard to find a house with more than 4 bedrooms, little alone 6! Anyways, I searched New Port and found a place with six bedrooms!!!! It is not as fancy as the house listed on the first post but it consists of: A Beach Villa with 3 units (two of which connect) which all include: 2 bedrooms and 1 bath. So in total, 6 bedrooms and 3 baths. With a separate living and dining area (maybe Degen could sleep in the living area?) The price of this is not bad compared to what I've been finding for summer rates and homes with 5 bedrooms.

The price is:

mid Sept - mid June $1,000 - $2,500/week
mid June - mid Sept $1,800 - $3,500/week

If we want to go in the beginning of June we would get the $2,500 a week. If all families go including Degen, it would be $357.00 a couple/family/Degen.

I am not sure what this- maybe that's what the house opens up to?

Looks like a living/dining area

I am not sure what this is either but you can see out the window how close you are to the beach!

I am not sure if it has a full kitchen. This is the only draw back I see with the place. On the add it says dinning area and that there is a BBQ in the lower unit. I can contact them and find out exactly what it has in the way of a kitchen. Scratch that, I just looked at all the pictures and there is a full kitchen with a refrigerator, stove and sink. I am unsure if each "unit" has a kitchen or if there is one for all three "units". There is a washer and dryer as well but they are coin operated.

The major advantages with this house is that it is in Newport, we can all fit (YEAH!!!!), it is a beach front property, meaning it is on the beach, and the price is reasonable. Here is the link: http://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/1126.html

Please let me know what you think about this! Also, I have not heard from Verlynne and Rich or Jason and Aubrie. If anyone has talked to them about getting a beach house this summer and knows how they feel about it let me know. Thanks!

First Things First

I don't remember where or when but I do remember having a discussion about getting a beach house this summer for our family. I want my children to have wonderful memories of their childhood like I do. When I was little we used to rent a beach house with my family every year. I think this would be a really great experience for all of our families.

It's almost October so I think if we are going to do this, we need to get started! So, who is interested in getting a beach house this summer for a week/or 5 days? Sound like fun? It is going to be outrageously fun!!!! We were thinking that we would need a pretty good sized house to fit all of us in it. One bedroom per married couple is what we were thinking. We could bring sleeping bags/air mattresses for the kids. If Degen wants, he can have his own room too or usually in a big house there are two living rooms/lofts/extra rooms where possibly Degen/older kids could sleep if they wanted to and if parents allowed them hehe :). Also, with a house you have a full kitchen, so most of the meals could be made at the house which we can divide up evenly when it gets closer to time.

So, I've been looking around just to get an idea of prices and stuff and I saw houses from $2,000- $10,000 per week. I think we should stick to a more economy friendly price of house that is still big enough for our family. If we got a six bedroom house for a week for $3,000.00- it would be $428.00 per family. I know this sounds like a lot, but we have several months to save this money. The size of the house will depend on how many people are going to be in it. The area of the house also plays part in the price of the house. I know we all love Newport, so I will look there first but it is an expensive area.

We need to decide on the following items:

1. Who is interested in going- (this does not have to be a definite answer yet, just an idea so we can price houses that are big enough)

2. The date- I was thinking the first or second week in June just because it seems like July is an out of control month and August people are getting ready for school. Please comment on when you think a good time to go would be. It is early enough in the year that we could plan this vacation and then plan the rest of your summer around it.

3. The Place- Newport, San Diego, Santa Monica, (This might depend on the best value for a house we can find )

So think about this for a few days and get back to me so we can start planning the funnest beach house vacation ever!! Over the next week I will look at houses and post pictures and prices so everyone can see.

Here is one I found its pretty awesome and it sleeps 20+ people. It is hard to find a house this big. It is $495 per day so it we stayed 5 days it would be $ 2475 (353.00 per family) and if we stayed a week it would be $3465 (495 per family) click on this link to see pictures of it and all the amenities http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/vac/1978168749.html Some of them include:

Suitable for large groups, weddings, retreats and events
Plenty of parking
La Jolla location
Private swimming pool and spa
Outdoor resort style furnishings and decor
BBQ Island
Fire pit
Game room
4 Flat screen TV`s
WiFi
2 living rooms
2 dvd players
Washer / dryer
Gas Fireplace
Huge back yard
1/2 basketball court