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!