The Jones Girls

Today is our last day at Paradise Point.   I don’t want to leave…waaah!!    I called the Front Desk and got to speak to Annette and she arranged for a late check out.   Yay!!

The girls begged for more pool time and more beach time.  So we spent a couple of hours playing on the beach and then headed over to the pool for a while.  

Then I packed us all up.  That was not fun.    My 10lb pkg in 5lb bucket turned into a 20lb pkg in a 5lb bucket…yikes!!     I crammed everything in and slowly crawled out of the Paradise Point.   Please Gimme More of this resort.  I love this place.   I will be coming again for sure.

I decided I wanted to take the girls on a Harbor Cruise of San Diego Bay.  So I used my handy dandy GPS Navigator (I know nickname it Navi) and it guided me to the Harbor.   We purchased our tickets and were just in time for the next harbor cruise.   What a breathtaking tour it was.    There was a lot of fascinating facts and topics during the narration of our cruise.     We all had a great time.

Cliff has been in Arkansas working on a water purification project.    We miss him a lot.  He called me just as we were driving out of the San Diego Harbor area.     I told him we had a great time.  

We did a quick stop drive thru at Del Taco and then headed up to Tustin, about 1/2 hours north of San Diego for a cook out family picnic with my multiple moms club.

We spent a few hours at the cook out and I won the 50/50 raffle!    Just enough money to fill up the gas tank!!  Yippee!!

One neat thing that Sea World is offering is when you buy a ticket, you can go as much as you want till the end of the year.  So this meant we could go again and again.  We decided we would go back to Sea World in the early evening.

We spent the day enjoying the beach.    The girls grabbed their sand shovel kits and we walked to the beach…all of about 20 steps and we were on the beach from our bungalow.  It can’t get better than this.  

The sand was so soft.   We went out to the water and it was amazing.  The water was shallow to our calves for about 20 feet or so.    It was the perfect beach for us.   We walked along the beach collecting different shells and they learned about all of the different sea kelp and sea weed.    I showed them the little holes in the wet sand were made by tiny sea crabs.    They made sand castles and met little friends and helped them make their sand castles even bigger.     It was just beautiful.

We ventured over to the jacuzzi for a bit then headed to our bungalow for showers and change of clothes.   We headed out to Sea World at 6:45pm.

At 7:45pm we found ourselves at Shamu’s stadium anxiously awaiting to see a neat night time show called Shamu Rocks!    We stayed away from the soaker seats…LOL!!

Afterwards we enjoyed some neat nighttime entertainment called Summer Nights.   That was fun and amazing to see.   

We then visited some fish exhibits and by 9:45pm we headed back to our bungalow.

Another beautiful day in paradise…

After we got up and had breakfast, we all got ready and headed out for Sea World.    Little did I know from learning from my GPS Navigator in my handy dandy minivan, Paradise Point was only 1 mile from Sea World.   Apparently, Paradise Point Resort is the closest resort property to Sea World.  Well, what do ya know!   

So a short drive over a bridge and in 4 minutes after leaving Paradise Point, we entered the Sea World parking lot.   Totally convenient.   More thumbs up for Paradise Point!!

Sea World has added some fun things for the kids.   They now have a themed Elmo adventure park.  It has all kinds of cool little rides and splash park  for kids.   We had a blast in there .

We headed over to the Shamu show.   We opted to sit in the “soak” section.   It was a hot day and we wanted to cool off.  We enjoyed the show and didn’t get wet at all.

We got to pet the dolphins but unfortunately we couldn’t feed them since they are on a strict eating schedule of early morning hours before the park opens.

We decided to go watch the dolphin show.    It was packed so the only seats available were in first row – yep you guessed it – the soaker row.     Oh well, it was a hot day so we weren’t too worried about it.   Well, these cutsie little sweet dolphins faked us out!!    We were surprised that they can splash just as much water as Shamo can!!   We got S.O.A.K.E.D.     We smelled like an aquarium – nice!!

The girls wanted to check out the Arctic area where the penguins were.  That was nice.

I had to execture my promise to the girls to pick out a Sea World Toy.   They all got cute Shamo squeakie toys.    Boy, was that a noisy choice!!

At about 5:30pm we ventured out of Sea World and did some shopping to get some swim rings and pool paraphernalia.    Then I swung by Subway for sandwiches for diner.  

Then we headed back to the resort.   At check-in yesterday, the front had told me that they today at 8:00pm were showcasing a Disney movie (Wall-E) on a large screen at the main pool.  All of the kids could swim in the pool and watch the movie.   The resort provided free smores, popcorn and movie.  We hailed down the bell boy and he drove us to the pool.  We had a lot of fun in the pool watching the movie and ate our sub sandwiches for dinner there. 

Another perfect day in paradise…

This morning I felt like taking our new minivan onto the open road.   Doggone it, if I am going to have car payments, I am going to enjoy driving my new hooptie!!

I have been fantasizing about staying at this resort called Paradise Point in San Diego.  I had seen this resort previewed on the Jon & Kate Plus 8 show.   The thing that impressed me was that if it was safe and good enough for the Gosselins multiples, by golly, it should be perfect for the Jones Multiples!!  

Paradise Point is on its own island.  It consists of dozens of acres of lush tropical surroundings, with 6 salt water pools and 4 of them are perfectly suitable for little kids.  All of the accommodations are private bungalows and each offers it own little private grassy backyard with comfy Adirondack chairs and table on a nice sized patio.    The most outstanding part of this property is that it is completely surrounded by beaches.    Every bungalow is just steps away from the beach!!  You have to check this little piece of heaven on earth…  www.ParadisePoint.com

I just so happen to be putting together a presentation as a guest speaker for both of my moms clubs on the subject of family travel within a radius of 2 hours from La Habra in Orange County.  Paradise Point would be the perfect property for me to showcase for my presentation, especially for my multiple moms club.

I called Paradise Point at 10am this morning and spoke to Annette, the Manager of Reservations.  I told her my interest in previewing and showcasing the resort for my guest speaker presentation.    We negotiated a price for our stay at the Paradise Point.   We have an awesome bungalow waiting for us.   We will be there today through this Friday – yipee!!    Look out

Have you ever seen a woman pack  10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bucket?  Well, I sure did !!  I packed all of the comforts of home for me and the girls- including a microwave for our food so we could have some easy heat up foods in our bungalow.       It took me about 1 hour to pack and another hour to get the girls are ready and then we headed out to our vacation to paradise.  

I used my handy dandy GPS navigator and it got us there perfectly.     As we were driving up the driveway, it was just like being in Hawaii.    There was so much attention paid to detail.   Check-in at the lobby was easy breasy.  We were met by the bell boy who asked if I needed any assistant.    I was good to go but and thanked him anyway.   Check this out.  The bell boy has his own 8 seater golf cart mobile that will transport resort guests all over the property.    He will also do errands around the property or whatever.   Nothing is impossible for the bell boy – tip is the hook to get awesome service with the bell boy.  We did use him to take us to the little store that they have on the property.  Very convenient.  I just phoned and they had the bell boy with his 8 seater ready to whisk us away.  Totally cool dude!!

So we unpacked our stuff and headed out to the pool.   It was the first time the triplets were in a deep pool.  The pool was perfect because it had a gradual decline, so they could slowly walk into the pool.    The jacuzzi was well loved by the girls too.

At night they had amazing fire pits blazing with flames.    These fire pits were located around the 6 different pools. The fire pits looked so beautiful.   They had tiki torches in every nook and cranny of the resort.   It was like I was on the show survivor.    The property welcomed people to roast marshmallows and make smores around the fire pit.  How cool is that!!      We went to the store  (thanks bell boy) to purchase their signature smoores package which comes complete with long wooden sticks, marshmallows and the smoores fixins.     Fun times at the fire pit – yes baby!!

We drove our new minivan home last night at about 10pm.   The dealership keeps only about 1 gallon of gas in all of the new cars in hopes that anyone trying to steal one of their cars won’t get too far on such little gas.

This means that we would have to gas up in the morning on the way to driving Cliff to LAX.    His flight was departing at 6:30am.     That meant we had to get up at 3:30am and be out of the house at 4:00am.  I managed to pack Cliff’s luggage last night.   I tell you I hope to goodness I got it right for him.   There is nothing worse than packing your husbands suitcase for a business trip when you are barely coherent and exhausted.  Oh well, at least SOMEBODY packed his suitcase…

So at 4:00am, before the roosters crow, (yes I sound bitchy and I am crappy tired) we head out for the airport.  There is a little red light glowing on the dashboard.  Crap!!  We are on E for Empty!!!    So we try to find a  freakin’ gas station and everything is CLOSED.    We finally find one and then we head out to LAX.  All was well at the airport and then I drove into the dawn sky toward La Habra.

So this was the beginning of my day.   I took the girls to a great frozen yogurt shop, called Pink Berry.  They are doing a fundraiser for our La Habra Moms Club.   I have organized a service project fundraiser with the La Habra Mom’s Club on behalf of  United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of Orange County.  UCP is close to my heart and anytime I can find a way to give to them, I am happy to do it. 

Anyway,  Pink Berry has arranged that 15% all sales from August 1st through August 15th will be donated to UCP.  So there we were with all of our kiddos, enjoying yummy frozen yogurt with delicious fresh fruit toppings.   We had a lot of fun.  The girls didn’t like the frozen yogurt too much.  They prefer traditional “white” ice cream – go figure!!

So we arrived at Honda at 11am.   We did some more searching for minivans and crunched numbers with Bernie and Magnum.   One thing that made me go to Honda in the first place is I purchased a new Honda in 1995 at this time of year which is Honda Year End Clearance.  So we were lucky to get a good discount with the year end clearance.   We decided on the vehicle we wanted.    Gulp….  boy have the price of new vehicles gone up!!

We purchased a sparkling new platinum-gold minivan with leather interior, sunroof, navigation with blue tooth phone and voice activation and DVD TV player for the kiddos.    

We purchased an extended warranty for 100,000 miles or 8 years bumper to bumper warranty.     Gotta have that!!

It took Cliff and I about 8 large garbage bags to fill up all of the crap, I mean belongings, that were in our old minivan.  I kissed my sweet pile of junk bye bye.  No more tows, no more worries if I was going to be stranded – I was moving on to bigger and better things – dependability in a new minivan – along with a brand spanking new sparkling CAR PAYMENT – fun!!

I have now joined the ranks of all of the other Odyssey minivan owners in my La Habra Mom’s Club.  I had been so proud of being the owner of the oldest minivan, the one with sliding doors that were not automatic, the one with the air conditioning that didn’t work in the back to cool off the girls in the back, the one who had the purple-blue 90’s paint job with gold spiraled rims from 1998.    I was a bad ass for sure!! LOL!!

Woo hoo!!  I am still trying to figure out the voice activation and all of the bells and whistles.  I should have it all figured out in about a year or so ((wink, wink!!)).

Lately our minivan has been really reliable and has spent too much time and way too much money trying to fix it and figure out why the darn thing stalls out on me when I try to start the car.

We saw the news and commercials about the Cash for Clunkers.  I want on the government website, and wouldn’t you know it!!  Our minivan would qualify for a $3500 or $4500 credit for Cash for Clunkers.

Since Cliff needed some quiet time here at the house to work, I decided to take the girls with me and go check out minivans.   I definitely didn’t want another Chrysler Town & Country since that is what we currently have and I have not been happy with the unreliability of it.    Dodge Caravan is the same maker as the Chrysler T&C.

I checked out Consumer Reports and it showed and suggested that the Honda Odyssey was rated #1 for over 10 years and still continues to be #1.  Apparently, most American-made minivans begin breaking down at 100,000 miles.   The Honda Odyssey, you are just breaking it in at 100,000 miles!!  Now that is the kind of dependability I need in a car.

So I drove the girls down to Buena Park Honda to investigate what the Honda Odyssey is like.  More importantly, if my beloved pile of unreliable steel on wheels would qualify for a Cash For Clunkers moving into another new minivan can be tricky…

The first sales guy, John Kim, was a real mud in the hole.   I walked in there looking for a sales guy and this guy looked at me blankly and I had to ask him if he was a sales man and could he help me.    He said “ok”.  Wow, this guy is bright – NOT!!   Anyway, he walked me over to the minivans and he really didn’t know much about the minivans.  I had to ask all of the questions, he didn’t offer any information at all.    He displayed annoyance with me because I was a Cash for Clunkers lookie loo.  This guy was striking out with me.   He didn’t really want to spend any time with me and then had the audacity to walk ahead of me 15 feet, sit on a bench and not speak to me!!    Did I have B.O. or something.  I checked my pits and breath to make sure.  Nope, I smelled like roses.     He made me feel substandard and embarrassed to be there.

I walked out of the showroom and dealership frustrated and then the tears started rolling.  This John Kim was a terrible example of a salesman for the Buena Park Honda Dealership.    I was getting in my car and then the manager, Bernie, and their top sales man, Magnum came to my rescue.    They listened to my story while I was full of tears.     Just as this was all happening, I swear Cliff’s ears must have been ringing.  He called me and I sputtered to him through tears what was happening.  He was in shock, upset and said he would come to the discuss and slap some people up for treating his wife this way.    My night and shining armour to the rescue!! 

Bernie and Magnum profusely apologized for my horrible experience and begged me to give them another try.  They coaxed me out of the car, promising my girls a full playroom full of dolls, all of the popcorn and drinks we could all handle while they worked up an analysis for my cash for clunkers qualification and also to give me a total inspection of all of the Honda Odysseys.  Bernie immediately told me good news, we qualify for the cash for clunkers!!   My sweet blue piece of crap is going to minivan heaven!!!   

Now this is exactly the kind of treatment I thought I was going to get with El Crapo Salesman John Kim.    The manager, Bernie, sent John Kim home and told him he was suspended and to piss off.   Way to go Bernie!!

Cliff and I checked out all of the models of Odysseys.    It was getting late…about 10pm.   We will have to go back tomorrow and continue our search and then see if we are going to put ourselves into hock, I mean debt for a new minivan.

I do have to say our super sales man, Magum, is Magnificent!!!  woohoo!!