We took our annual family Disney vacation at the beginning of February. We were planning to wait to go in the fall after the new Cars ride opens, but Adam found such an amazing deal to go in February that we couldn't pass it up. We usually have Adam's parents or my parents come with us, but since neither could this year, it was our first time going to Disneyland without extended family. It's so nice to have them there to talk to and help with the kids, but we kind of enjoyed being on our own and being able to do whatever the kids felt like and not having to worry about everyone else.
We made the decision to drive to California for this trip, which we'd never done before. We were both so worried that we almost bought plane tickets a week before. Our kids have never been very patient or good long-distance travelers, so we had reason to worry. But it ended up being a great car ride.
We packed a bag full of surprises (little dollar store toys, candy, new DVDs to watch) and every hour they would get a new surprise if they'd been good. The boys didn't even whine or complain about the long drive, it was amazing!
The first night we left after Adam got off work and drove to St. George, where we stayed the night at my in-laws house. We left early the next morning and got to Anaheim by that afternoon. We stayed at the Paradise Pier, which we liked a lot. After getting settled in there, we walked over to the Disneyland Hotel pools. They have the cutest Monorail water slides that our kids LOVED. Austin is obsessed with the real Monorail, so he was in heaven.
The next morning we used our early morning entry pass and got a few rides in before the crowds arrived. Well, the crowds never really arrived because February is the absolute best time to go to Disneyland. The place was deserted. And we got lucky and had perfect weather the whole week, highs around 70, lows in the 50's.
My boys were soooooo brave. They were willing to ride all the scary rides, including Tower of Terror. Ethan's favorite ride was California Screamin' and he made us ride it with him over and over. He was also obsessed with meeting every character he possibly could. We spent a ton of time in line to meet characters and getting autographs, but it was a lot of fun. Austin is so scared of people dressed in full costume like that, but by the 3rd day he finally overcame his fear and took some pictures with them. Sweet little Austin rode all the scary rides and even kept his hands up on Space Mountain the whole time, just because Ethan promised him more "points" if he did it. Austin will do anything Ethan tells him to do. His favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean, which we must have ridden at least 10 times. Kylee was a trooper and loved all the rides she was big enough to go on. Her favorite was probably the Little Mermaid ride at California Adventure.
Austin was soooo excited to ride the Monorail. And I just love how cute they are in their Mickey hats.
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My favorite classic: Haunted Mansion!
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| Here's Kylee riding the ferry over to Tom Sawyer's Island (I think the new name for it is Pirate's Cove?). I found out that Adam had never been to Tom Sawyer's Island. He always talked about how dumb it was even though he'd never been. So I made him go and he actually liked it. But I'm sure he still thinks they'd be better off building a new thrill ride on that piece of land. |
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| How cute is he?????? |
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| Austin is kinda obsessed with all castles. He did the walk through of Sleeping Beauty's castle several times, pretending that he was in Bowser's Castle. |
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| So brave! |
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| Kylee loved all the characters, except for Sully. Love this picture! |
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| Kylee spent much of her time on the carousal! |
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DAY 2!
Day two we spent another long day at the parks, though mainly at California Adventure. |
By day 3, the kids (and the adults) were exhausted. We decided to take it slow that day since we'd already ridden everything several times. We spent all morning at the Disneyland Hotel pools. Then we spent a nice afternoon at Disneyland.
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| After meeting like 20 characters and having Austin hide every time, I finally grabbed him and forced him to come meet Donald. And he loved him! From that point on he was over his fears! |
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| Adam's favorite childhood movie was Mary Poppins. He was soooooooo excited when we ran into her. He even got an individual picture of the two of them (on my phone, so sorry it's not included here!)! |
While I was in line with the boys for Peter Pan, Adam spotted Cinderella and sprinted over so Kylee could meet her. Kylee is NOT fond of strangers, she screams if anyone outside her immediate family so much as touches her. But when she saw Cinderella, she ran to her and just hugged and hugged. She was in HEAVEN! Adam said that Cinderella absolutely loved her. I was bummed that I missed the whole thing, so I decided it was worth my time to wait in line to meet the princesses. There she got to meet Snow White, Cinderella again, and Ariel. She hugged all of them and was sooooooooooooooooooo excited every time she spotted a new princess.
