Disneyland 2011- Day 1 !

Matt finished up his work in San Jose on Thursday morning... so we decided to drive down to Anaheim and make the most of our time in California! We hadn't originally planned to do Disneyland, so this was a last minute decision and we were a little unsure of how things would go without too much time to make a plan. We drove down Thursday afternoon and pulled into the Camelot Inn and Suites. The absolute best thing about our hotel is that it was directly across the street from Disneyland. We had a five minute walk from our room to the turnstyles at the Opening Gates, which was a HUGE plus! Last time we visited Disney, one of our biggest frustrations was the shuttle to and from the park. So... Big plus!! Also, the very first night, we were able to watch the Fireworks Show from the privacy of our own hotel room. The kids LOVED it! After a good night's sleep, we got up bright and early and hit Disneyland about 45 minutes before they opened. This pic is actually from our last night there!!

Here we are waiting for them to open the park:

We were so excited when they finally let us go in!!!

Awesome Things About our Disney Trip:

(in no particular order!)

1. We used Ridemax!

I could probably do an infomercial for these people- I LOVE it!

We tried Ridemax on our last trip, but we ended up with an even better option, and we were a little hesitant to follow the agenda because it was so very regimented... it seemed a little too strict for vacation. But, this time, we only had 2 day Park Hopper tickets and really wanted to get the most out of our time there, so we thought we would give Ridemax another try. We were so very happy with the results- I would recommend it over and over again!

Speed walking to our first ride, PeterPan's Flight!
2. Watching Victoria ride Dumbo! She was smiling so big- I never want to forget her face!!!

3. We got ahead of schedule !!! Yep- you read that right! I was so stoked- Matt had to remind me that I could slow down because we were doing so well on time!

Since we had a little extra time, we stopped by the Tea Cups before heading over to the Buzz Lightyear ride.

The tea cups are my favorite Fantasyland ride!

Next stop: Buzz Lightyear!

This ride involves shooting laser guns at targets, which is definitely not one of my talents. It's basically an interactive video game. So, as you may have predicted, Matt and Isaac scored like 8 trillion and Daphne and my scored like 8. But it was super fun and we rode it two times in a row!

4. We saw LOTS more characters than we did during our last visit!

Here we are walking into Mickey's House. Daphne and Tori were perplexed to find that the carrots in Mickey's garden would pop up and down by themselves!

Once again, we were ahead of schedule, so we stopped by Gadget's Go-Coaster, which was the first "roller- coaster" we rode.

Daphne was a little nervous at first, but she LOVED it!

Here we are exploring Donald Duck's house boat:

Lunch Break! Which brings me to number Five on my list of favorite things:

5. Packing our Own Lunch in the Park! That may seem like a weird thing to love about your visit to Disneyland, but I HATE paying big bucks for lame-o theme park food. This is a super easy way to save a big wad of cash and if you have a stroller with you, it's a no brainer! SO Easy! We stopped and got some Cotton Candy for a treat after!

6. Milking the Fast Pass System!! By this point in the day, we had ridden everything on our schedule, and we had already picked up Fast Passes for 4 other rides! So, we rode everything without a fast pass before lunch, and now that everyone and their dog was at the park, we could jump on four other rides without waiting in lines! Matt had a much larger stack of Fast Passes later on in the day... we were livin' large!

Here we are before Big Thunder Mountain, which was a family Favorite!

7. Our HUGE kids!!! We planned this trip to Disney partially because while we were already in Cali, Tori would be in her last few weeks of being a two year old. Disney doesn't charge you for your child until they are 3 years old, so she got in to the park FREE. And, because Matt gave them such Super-human height, Tori was tall enough to ride virtually everything! There were literally only two rides that she couldn't ride. Big Thunder Mountain is a great roller coaster- exciting and fun for even Isaac and Matt ( my adventure-loving boys!) and not too scary for Tori. Perfect.

Tarzan's Tree House!

We are not big Parade Watchers, but we did stop and see a little of this one on our way over to California Adventure!

Tori and I headed back to the hotel for nap time. Matt and the Kids had big fun over at California Adventure and we met them back at Disneyland later to try our luck at Space Mountain. Matt had Fast Passes from earlier in the day, so we walked right up to the head of the line. Love that!

Unfortunately, even though the girls were tall enough to ride space Mountain, it was NOT a big hit. Pretty much the saddest thing ever at Disneyland.

Even though we had Fast Passes for Soarin' Over California, we wtill had to wait for about five minutes. But we had lots of fun kissing to pass the time:

Next Stop: Dinner! I tend to prefer the food that we find at California Adventure... although it is still pretty pricey! We bought a Mickey Shaped Sourdough bread to supplement the food- Yum!

While the boys went on California Screamin', we girls headed over to King Triton's Carousel:

Now... if you are unfamiliar with Disneyland, this list won't mean much to you. We were so stoked about how much we were able to do in one day that we wrote it all out, just to remember!

Day 1:

Peter Pan
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
Dumbo
Mad Hatter's Tea Party
Buzz Light year x2
Big Thunder x2
Met Mickey
Met Minnie
Donald’s Boat
Gadget’s GO Coaster
Tarzan’s Tree House
Haunted Mansion
California Screamin’ x3
Soarin Over California x2
Mickey’s Ferris Wheel
Silly Symphony Swings
Grizzly River Rapids
Space Mtn.

Splash Mtn.
Triton’s Carousel
Indiana Jones

Whew!! We had so much fun on Day 1!! We were thankful for the great day and headed back to the hotel pretty exhausted, but happy as clams! Hopefully, I'll be able to post Day Two pics soon!

Hotel Days!

So.... our trip to California was a "working Vacation" for Matt. Since he was busy all day, here are a few shots of things we did to stay busy during the week. In all fairness, Matt put in a whole lot of time at the pool with the big kids during Tori's naps, etc... we just didn't end up with a picture of them together somehow. We came to California and saw so many amazing things, but my kids would have been just as happy if we hung out at the hotel pool the whole week. They loved it soooo much and asked when we could go to the pool as soon as they were out of bed in the morning. Although it was gorgeous in California, it wasn't exactly pool weather.

The thing about Tori and the pool is that she couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to be in the hot tub or the pool, so we went back and forth and back ad forth and back and forth, which started to give me quite the headache (and can't possibly have been good for her little body!)

So, after a little while, Tori was done. And when I say, done, I mean, DONE. Like... "take off your swimsuit and run around the pool naked" done. So... we were done.

We had lots of fun checking out the palm trees:

So... to avoid the headache at the pool, we tried some other outings. Like this amazing park in downtown San Jose:

The kids loved it!

They even had a carousel at the park, which was pretty impressive.

Other than the few shady characters walking aroud, it was a great park! There were also, unfortunately, tons of teeny tiny little insects flying around in their air. The Gnat-like little creatures were everywhere. While Daphne was sitting next to me on the bench having a snack I noticed something on her lip. I reached over to brush it off and, against the better judgement of the fleeting voice of warning in my head, said, "Oh- it ws just one of those tiny bugs."

Um, Yeah.

Big Mistake.

Huge Mistake.

She started crying hysterically. And then, when she finally calmed down, she sat dejectedly on the swing like this:

So, I tried to have fun anyway and played with Tori on the swings...

So, I went and got her a sanitizing wipe to clean off her mouth, hoping that would help her feel better so she could let it go.

But she didn't forget or let it go. This is her ten minutes later.

And then, after another few minutes, I saw her like this:

Sigh. Do you have a sense of the day to day drama at our house? Tori and Isaac were still having a blast!

And after another five minutes or so... she let it go and was back on top of the world! Sometimes, she just has to get it out of her system.

The next day, it was rainy, so we tried to find an indoor playland at the mall:

Stay tuned for pics from Disneyland!