At the beginning of 2022 Sam and I were toying with the idea of bringing the five of us (minus Simon because Kenya…) on a trip over spring break to Peru. I started planning the whole thing, got a loose itinerary nailed down, verified that we would be able to pull it off and started figuring out planes, trains and tours. But it never quite congealed. I am good at planning international trips; it’s a talent! And the whole time I was planning this Peru trip it kind of felt like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Some of it was some trepidation about traveling that far with our younger two who are not experienced travelers. But mostly it just wasn’t coming together. Once we reviewed what our summer travel was looking like (A LOT of trips to Utah for various reasons – like four trips in four months) Peru felt even less desirable. On our drive back from our unexpected Utah trip in February Sam said, “What if we all just went to Disneyland and Universal and spent time with our friends in So Cal?”. That immediately felt like the right call.

We quickly figured out the best dates and I texted my bestie Kelly who is in Santa Clarita, asking if we could stay with her and if she and her family would want to tag along. Yes and yes.

Then I mentioned it to Carrie. She was immediately game and said her family would definitely come with.

Then Kristy suggested that maybe she would fly out from Michigan with one of her kids to join.

So it seemed perfectly right that I would then text Mckay who was surfing at the time in Costa Rica if she could make the trip. Another big yes.

And that is how the Stubbert Family Vacation 2022 which included my four best friends and their kids/families came to be. All 20 of us. All together for the first time since 2018.

Before I delve into the trip (which was fun and epic and exhausting and did I mention fun?) I just have to say again how much these ladies mean to me. We all met between 20 and 22 years ago in NYC before we had kids. We had all been married for 3-4 years when we met but we essentially grew up together as mothers, as wives and as friends. They are my people. They have been my people for a very long time. I treasure them. Friends isn’t a strong enough word. More like sisters? Soulmates? Our kids have grown up around each other at various times over the last 22 years and are all familiar with each other and have their own relationships with each other independent of us moms. It’s pretty awesome to see.

For this So Cal adventure our family decided to really play tourists. Luckily everyone else had the same idea even though two of my friends live in So Cal. We hit karaoke (girls night with our oldest teen girls), a Dodgers game, Universal Studios, Disneyland and sightseeing around Hollywood and Griffith Park. It was a full five days!

First up was an epic night at our family’s very first Dodgers game and our first in person MLB game since before the pandemic. Kelly and her fam are season ticket holders but more than that, Kelly has been going to Dodger stadium her whole life. She has sung the National Anthem nine times for the Dodgers and she arranged to do it for the night we were there as a birthday present for me. I was able to go down onto the field and backstage as she prepared and then performed. Our seats were amazing, the game was great (until about the 6th inning and then it started to drag on) and the food was yummy. It was a perfect night for a ball game and a great beginning to our trip.

SUPER. FUN.

We lounged around Kelly’s beautiful backyard and neighborhood, playing volleyball, cooling off in the pool, having late night convos in the dark, eating entirely too many Crumbl cookies and spending time with alllllll of the animals living at Chez Privett (I think there are 25 animals on the property???).

Our Karaoke night was the reliving of a favorite tradition of ours that began when we all still lived in NYC. There are no better people than the five of us for karaoke. Don’t even come at me. We are epic. And guess what? Our daughters inherited our talents as well so it was a very very fun birthday night for all of us. Pizza and karaoke – what a birthday 🙂

The above photo is probably my favorite from our trip. Olive took it right after Kelly and Kristy sang our favorite “For Good” from Wicked. I cried my eyes out listening and singing along. Cried. My. Eyes. Out. We just all grabbed each other and held on tight and felt all the feels. It has been a really difficult/full/overwhelming past two years for the five of us for lots of different reasons. To hold each other tight right here made everything better. Kristy later posted this photo on her Instagram account and I love what she wrote so much that I’m just going to quote it here:

“A photo of five women celebrating 20 years of friendship. That word seems incredibly inadequate a word. If you knew what resides in the vault of these arms, our hearts and bodies, I think perhaps only a poet or some sort of feminine divine could pen the accurate term. Witness. Confidante. Cheerleader. Here in this circle we hold secrets, support, triumphs, fears, forgiveness, journey’s, healing and the best karaoke there ever was. My prayer is that my daughters see this and seek after it. Rare. Gem. Priceless. I’ll keep searching and let you know what the word is. I’ll check back in 2042 and let you know what it is. Friendship. Family. Sisters…?”

It’s perfect, right? That’s what this photo and these women mean to me. And we really did sound incredible :). It felt good to open up my pipes for the first time in too long.

We hit Universal Studios and LOVED it. It was the first time at Universal Hollywood for me and Sam (we have been to Orlando) and the first time for our kids and it lived up to the hype. The thing we were all the most excited about was finally seeing The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and oh my gosh, it TOTALLY lived up to my expectations. So amazing. Loved it. We were a BIG group rolling into Universal but somehow it all worked out. We didn’t lose anyone which felt like a miracle 🙂

There we all are!

We hit Universal hard and then headed back home to relax a little. I have no memory of what happened that night or what we ate for dinner or anything else except that Sam got sick late in the night. So nauseous and super uncomfortable. We figured out it was probably the VR rides we had been on all day had really done a number on his system. I was worried that he would not be up to a full day at Disneyland the next morning but he rallied and we made it through.

And so onto Disneyland we went! We got there just before the park opened and were able to secure an early time slot for Rise of the Resistance which is my favorite ride at the park (none of my family had been on it yet so I was excited to show it to them). The weather was cool and overcast which was perfect for our day. We ran around Disney until about 3:00 PM, when Sam, me and Sophie headed to our hotel in Anaheim while the littles stayed with the rest of our friends/family in the park.

Sam and Sophie and I rested at the hotel for a few hours (Sam was still recovering from a night of being sick) and then we headed back to the park in an Uber. The Lundells and Mckay were still in the park; Privetts and Glass’s had headed back to Santa Clarita.

Being back in the park night with a few hours of rest in between was a game changer for us. I suddenly had way more energy and the vibe of the park was a lot more chill and slightly less crowded. Plus with the sun down the temps were perfect. We continued to run around the park until after the parade and then headed back to our hotel to crash.

We stayed in a 2 bedroom suite at a Marriott Residence Inn about five minutes from the park and it was great. Plenty of room for the five of us and the beds were comfy (as usual in a Marriott). We slept in the next morning and then spent some time at Downtown Disney shopping and eating. We stopped at Jazz Kitchen for lunch because 1) yummy and 2) they have the best beignets.

We spent the evening at a personal favorite of mine, the Anaheim Packing House – SO much fun and so many awesome food choices. APH is a huge food hall featuring about 50 restaurants and other artisans in an old refurbished fruit packing plant. SUCH a great place to visit different restaurants and hang out with friends. We met up with our friends Scottie and Julie from our BYU and NYC days – just the best.

We all crashed hard that night. The next morning we got a text from Carrie (who we had been with just the night before and hugged before leaving for our hotel) that she had tested positive for Covid. NOOOOOOOO. Which coincided perfectly with Sophie waking up sick and me feeling a little off. Testing commenced and no one in our family was positive. Still, Sophie and I were definitely under the weather so we masked up while walking around Griffith Park Observatory on the way back to Nor Cal.

We got home Thursday night and Sophie was totally sick. She tested negative again…and again the next day. By Saturday my test was a strong positive and I was totally sick – tight lungs, harder to breathe, cough, weak – the whole stupid thing. Sophie never tested positive and slowly improved while I went downhill. Carrie was down for the count and joining her was her youngest son Eli. Mckay fell sick with Covid too and cut her So Cal trip short to isolate safely at home. Miraculously, it was just four out of our party of 20 people who got sick. It was not the most ideal way to end the trip but luckily we fell apart at the end and not beginning or midway through! I isolated for over a week from my family – it was miserable. I kept testing positive and was so worried we would not be able to attend Sophie’s high school graduation in person or my nieces wedding in Utah…but I got better and everything we wanted/needed to do happened safely.

What a Stubbert Family Vacation, right?! Can’t wait to do it again in a few more years…hopefully without the caboose of Covid!

Share