Disneyland!!!

Disneyland is one of the greatest places.  I knew my kids would love it so I've been saving my money for over a year now so we could make the trip while our kids are still young and the magic of it all is still alive.  I told the kids we were going to go a few months in advance and so we talked about it and looked up YouTube videos and talked some more about it.  Dalin was so excited he could hardly keep his excitement in check.  My parents were able to go with us and so we all drove together in their Winnebago.  I will warn you though, there will be a lot of pictures in this post and I didn't even put all of them on here; just the highlights.

The first day we drove from Vernal to Primm, Nevada right outside the California border.  One of the best things about family vacations is swimming in the hotel pools.  My kids were so excited to swim.  We took them to the pool and I told Dan to watch them for a minute while I went and got the towels.  When I returned he was in the pool with them, fully clothed.  What a funny husband I have.  I guess he couldn't contain his excitement any longer.  The hot tub was a highlight since that night air was pretty cool and it was fairly windy.

The next day we drove about 3 1/2 more hours and got to our hotel right at lunch time.  We had a quick bite to eat and then headed off to Disneyland.

Our first glimpse of Disneyland from the shuttle.  Braden was the first to spy the sign.  We could hardly keep them in their seats.

Can I just put this question out there: Why does Disneyland require not only your tickets, but a picture ID as well every time you entered the park?  I got a little annoyed at having to bust out all our tickets and my ID every time we crossed from one park to the other.  They even took our picture the first day we went in and we had our hand stamped when we left.  Apparently that wasn't enough because each and every time they needed my tickets, AND ID, and they looked at our hand stamp.  What the heck is the point?  Good thing I thought to bring my ID into the park with me last minute.  OK rant over...back to Disneyland fun.

One of my favorite things about Disney is how they put so much effort into every little detail.  They truly make it an amazing place just to look at.  The smallest details they put so much work into.  I love it.  Just look at those flowers behind us.  Love it!

Of course one of the first things to do when you walk inside the gates in ride the train.  My kids love trains and we thought it would be a good idea to let them kind of see what there was.  They did get a little impatient because we got to see it, but not ride what we saw right then and there because we were on the train.   

It was decided the first thing they wanted to do was ride Splash Mountain, so we were off.  I'm so glad we took Leslee's gigantic double stroller and wished we somehow had a third.  Dalin and Braden sometimes fought over who got to ride.  It was an awful lot of walking for such small little legs.

I have always loved the castle.  My kids were more interested in the fish that swam in the moat.  Typical boy stuff.

Waiting in line, so excited to try out our first ride.  We didn't make it all the way to Splash Mountain without stopping a few times to ride something else. 

Peter Pan ride.  It was so hard to get Landon to ever look at a camera the whole time because his eyes were constantly glued to all the amazing things he could see.  A flying boat?  We get to ride in one?  Who could tear there eyes from that?

 Landon was too short to ride Splash Mountain, but these two weren't.  Waiting in line for the thrill of the ride.  Dalin immediately wanted to ride again and Braden said no more Splash Mountain.  It was one of Dalin's favorite rides, so we got Fast Passes to come and ride again later.

After that we jumped onto Whinny the Pooh.  Braden claims this to be his favorite ride. 

 I tried to capture Landon's reaction to the rides, but never quite got it.  He was so wide eyed I thought his eyes would pop right out of his head.  He didn't say much, but just tried to take it all in. 

If you go to Disneyland then you have to go to the haunted house.  I didn't really say much to the kids about it we just got in line.  This ride petrified Dalin and he is now petrified of the dark beyond anything you can imagine.  Opps.  Maybe shouldn't have taken him on this one.  It didn't really phase Braden or Landon.  But Dalin now has a huge complex about the dark that he never had before we rode on this.  He now has to sleep with the lights on.  Not just a night light, but full overhead lights.  Whoopsie.

Dumbo's train ride was a fun one for Landon. He just loves trains.  They all ran and jumped in the "jail" as Landon put it.  My dad was so good to get on whatever ride they wanted to go on.  He really was a trooper.  And so was my mom for that matter, other than she gets deathly ill with motion sickness on a lot of the rides. 

My kids have never seen the Wind In the Willows, so they didn't know much about Mr. Toad but the ride was a blast. 

As the night wound down and it got late we decided to climb Tarzan's tree house for one last kick before we headed back to our hotel.  It was a good way to end the night.

Dan being a goof off!

Making some noise.  We were up way later than the kids are normally up and with a very busy day behind the shuttle ride back was long and sleepy. 

The next day we headed off to California Adventure.  First thing's first we went to the Grizzly River Run to get our Fast Passes to World of Color, which ended up being a gigantic waste of time, but more on that later.  Since no one was in line we hopped right on.  This was a good choice because I got drenched and stayed nice and cool the rest of the day.  Temperatures were in the 90s.  Landon was too short, but I think he would've liked this one.  I thought is was funny how Dalin would immediately say he wanted to ride every single again as soon as we got off. 

While Dan and my mom took Dalin and Braden on the Tower of Terror I took Landon over to Bug's Life where we rode these rinky dinky bumper cars about a million times in a row.  It was nice because he couldn't ride a lot of the rides in California Adventure since he was too short and no one was in line so was got off and got right back on.  Plus he LOVES to drive.

Back to Tower of Terror.  Again we traumatized Dalin beyond all reason, but Braden was fine.  I think it was more the ambiance of the ride than the actual ride that scared the crap out of Dalin and he swears he never wants to ride that one again as long as he lives.  That being said, Dalin rode every single ride.  He even went on the huge white roller coaster, which he thought was fun but didn't want to do it a second time.  Braden said his favorite ride of the day was Mickey's Farris Wheels.  He really liked that one and he still talks about it and tells all his friends about it.  Overall, they were both very brave to go on all the rides.

Then, we left the park to grab some lunch and drop Landon and Dan off at the hotel so Landon could take a nap and Dan could take a test (he's in school).  We meant to have Dan meet us back at the park in a couple of hours, but Landon never woke up from his nap.  Dan couldn't get him up.  He ended up sleeping from about 4:00pm until 8:30 the next morning, all through the night.  We really wore that poor little thing out.

While they were at the hotel we took Dalin and Braden over to Tomorrow Land to ride some of things Landon wouldn't be able to.  Driving REAL cars!  What kid wouldn't want to do that?

Then we went to Star Tours.  This was a highlight for Dalin because he's really into Star Wars.  This picture is hard to see, but there's a little robot guy behind Dalin talking away.  Dalin was mesmerized.  This was his favorite ride of the whole park.  After this ride was over Dalin proclaimed, "This is the greatest day of my whole life!"  Disneyland was worth every penny at that point.  The Buzz Lightyear ride was pretty fun too, but I don't have any pictures of it. 

 That evening we went back over to California Adventure to see the World of Color show.  First of all I'm going to rant again....why on earth does Disneyland push fast passes for this show?  What a bunch of pointless baloney that was.  We gave them our fast passes at which point we were thrown into a huge crowd to line up.  Then they let us into the appointed area where we were herded like cattle into a large area with no seating and nothing to do but stand there.  So we all sat down on the pavement to wait out the next hour before the show started.  Then the ridiculous part.  They would not let my dad leave to go take his pill, which was just dumb.  Then people who didn't have fast passes lined up in the walk-way behind us with much better seats than we had with fast passes.  Not only were there benches for them to sit on, but they weren't crammed shoulder to shoulder with everyone else.  Plus they could come and go as they pleased.  If we had to do it again we would probably just ride rides until just before the show and then meander on in and just stand in the back where you can still see perfectly fine.  Now here comes the really dumb part.  After we sat there for about 30 minutes a lovely little worker comes by and tells us all we need to stand up and scoot together and which point he lets in hundreds more people to go stand in front of us.  We had to stand there for over 30 minutes, crammed together with a million other people.  Then we had to stand there for the 40 minute show.  Now think about this.  We have come to see this show with a 5 and 7-year-old.  If everyone is standing can a 5 and 7-year-old see?  No they can't.  So what did I do?  Picked up Braden and held him the entire show.  So not only did we stand there for and hour, I held Braden the whole time we were standing.  It basically ruined the whole show because we were all so tired by this point.  But the show was amazing.  Disney puts on some amazing shows.  But sorry Disney, this one gets a thumbs down simply because it was completely unreasonable for us to have to stand for that long.  I think they need to work out the logistics of that show for a more pleasing experience.  But the show was truly amazing.

Day 3 we went back over to California Adventure to check out Cars Land.  Landon is really into Cars right now and likes to watch Mater's Tall Tails just about any chance he can get.  His room is decked out with Cars paraphernalia and he knows the characters so we had to wait until he was with us to come to Radiator Springs.  I've heard mixed reviews from different people about Cars Land some say it's a disappointment others say that it's great.  For us, it was great.  I think this is because Landon was so excited about it all and Dalin had just fallen in love with Cars 2.  I asked him why he liked Cars 2 better than Cars 1 and he said it's because they have weapons. Go figure.  This ride was great fun for Landon because it came from Mater's Tall Tails and even standing in line was exciting for him because he saw all the different Mater characters such as, El Materdor.  The ride itself was fun for him too.  The other two seemed to like it as well but not as much as Landon did.

I absolutely love this picture and I think I might hang it on my wall.

Then, we saw this guy.....Lightning Mcqueen.  There was a line to go up and talk to him and take pictures, but I thought if we just went to the side and looked at him it would be enough.  I was wrong.  So we went and got in line.  I have to admit this was a highlight for all three of my kids.  Lightning Mcqueen talked to you and after we were done he drove off and was replaced my Mater.  We watched the whole thing and boy was that exciting.  Unfortunately all my pictures of Mater are crap so I didn't post them on here.

After waiting in line, here they are.  I like how Braden "gave him a hug".

And here we all are.  I have to admit it was really fun to go up and take these pictures, mostly because the kids were so into it and happy about it.

We love Radiator Springs.  Disney does it best. Unfortunately, the best ride in Cars Land, the raceway was having technical difficulties so we weren't ever able to ride it.  I was a little bummed because I think the kids would have really, really liked that one.

Luigi's tire ride was a major let down for me.  What a pointless and stupid ride, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. I just don't think it was worth the 20 minute wait.

Day 3 waiting in line became much more difficult with the boys getting very tired of standing there.  So a lot of the time Dan and I would just sit on the ground and let them sit on us.  You can tell from Landon's face that he's getting really tired again.

At this point the boys were sick of lines and too many people so we headed back to Disneyland and went out to Pirate Island as Dalin referred to it.  This was a good idea because they were free to run around and kind of see whatever they wanted.  We didn't have to stand around.

They absolutely loved exploring the caves on the island, but of course my camera is not the best and couldn't really handle the pictures in the darkness of the caves.  I did get these though, once we found the pirate treasure.

These two had a lot of fun climbing all over the treasure while Dalin went back to the caves for more exploration.

Dan enjoyed some treasure time too.

Lastly, we went to Toon Town.  This a huge let down mostly because the kids were really too tired by this point and we had to deal with multiple melt downs.  Plus, the first ride we chose was Roger Rabbit and it was by far the worst ride in the whole park.  So we waited 30 minutes and then it was the worst and then the kids were so done.  So we didn't get to see the rest of Toon Town.  I'm a little disappointed because I think they would've really liked it, but it just wasn't worth it at that point.  We did go see a show that was starting at a little theater right outside Toon Town.  It felt amazing to finally sit down and just chill for minute and the show was spectacular.  I think it was called Mickey's Magic Paint Brush.  The kids really liked it a lot and I'm pretty sure the adults did too.

At the end of day 3 we had reservation to go to Goofy's Kitchen and do the character dining.  It's expensive, but well worth it in my opinion.  Rather than waiting in a million more lines to see the characters in the park we just waited and saw them here while eating delicious food.  The kids really liked this.  As you'll notice Landon was captivated by all the characters.  He wasn't scared at all but couldn't stop staring at them.  I never did get him to look at the camera the whole time we were there.

Again, notice Landon stare at the Mad Hatter.

Of course Aladdin, every girls' heartthrob, he could care less about.  That cupcake was just too powerful. 

Braden liked Pluto a lot.  I love how he put is arm over Pluto's nose to take a picture.  So cute.

Pluto was a funny guy and even gave my dad a hard time.

Dalin also like Pluto.

He thought it was funny how he had to put his autograph book on Pluto's nose to be signed. 

Landon still clutching that cupcake, but mesmerized by Pluto.

Just being silly with Landon.

The boys worked hard, doing extra chores and jobs to earn money to take to Disneyland.  They each had $20 to spend on whatever they wanted.  I was a little worried when I told them they could get whatever they wanted because I didn't want to end up taking something home that was useless or pointless like a giant stuffed animal.  When we came out of Star Tours they dump you right in the middle of a gift shop. No, Disney is not stupid, they know how to get your money.  Right there in front of us was a build your own light saber station.  We found heaven.  And we were in luck because they cost $20.  I wanted pictures of them actually building them, but it was so crowded and I had to use my rather large backside to box out some very pushy people so my kids didn't get shoved out of the way.  Very crowded that gift shop was (said like Yoda).  So now we have these awesome light sabers that light up and when you swing them they make the light saber sounds and when you hit them together they make the light saber sound.  Rather cool toys and perfect for my boys.  Good way to end the final night at Disneyland.

On a side note, the morning before day 3 we were all eating breakfast when Braden came over to me a whispered in my ear, "mom, my tooth is gone".  I was slightly confused, then he showed me his mouth and sure enough he had lost a second tooth.  We looked everywhere and never found it.  There is a chance he swallowed it.  So he was visited by the tooth fairy in our hotel.

Before heading home we decided to drive out to the beach a have some fun.  I love beaches.  It was a semi-foggy day and the beach was gorgeous.  I could live on the beach.  There's something very soothing about the sound of waves.

Dalin loved being chased by the waves.

It wasn't too cold, but it wasn't exactly warm either.  I got in with them and after to initial take  your breath away moment then it was fine.  We had a lot of fun.

Landon liked to find kelp and then drag it all over the beach.

Beautiful view and not very crowded.

Landon has a fist full of tiny seashells.  He and I collected them and put them in a big pile.  We just played in the sand and had a great time.

We loved our trip.  I am so glad we had a chance to go.  Dalin is already planning next year's trip to Disneyland as if this is going to happen every year now.