January 21-25, 2026

While Pittsburgh anticipated 12 inches of snow, we made our escape to Anaheim for a warm, fun-filled vacation during the kids’ semester break. Because we might be a little insane, we fit about 70 rides into three park days at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure. Favorites included Space Mountain, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout, and Radiator Springs Racers.

Old habits die hard however, and we also spent a good amount of time eating ice cream. We of course enjoyed some Dole Whip (a Barlow favorite best enjoyed inside the Tiki Room) and some Mickey bars. We also stopped by the Cozy Cone Motel in Cars land for soft serve twists in a place with far more than 90 cones.

Other highlights of the trip included our trip to Balboa Beach for Edmund’s first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, being at the front of the rope all three days, watching the World of Color and Fantasmic shows, and observing Greg’s joy as we rode the Main Street Vehicles, the Sailing Ship Columbia, and the train.

After a packed trip, we flew home in the middle of the snowstorm, arriving to an airport where almost every other flight was canceled. We drove through the unplowed snow (and empty Fort Pitt Tunnel) home.

Fun Fact:
Dole Whip is not actually pineapple soft serve ice cream: it’s a dairy-free, gluten-free concoction mixed from a mysterious powder plus water. (Did we purchase some of this powder to make our own Dole Whip at home with a Cuisinart soft serve maker? Why yes we did.)