Disneyland--FINALLY!!

So, I'm finally getting around to posting about our Disneyland trip. We left Feb. 28 at night and drove down to St. George. We stayed the night with Jason's brother, John, and his family. It's so nice to have them down there. It's always fun to see them. We went to church with them Sunday morning, then continued on our way. We stopped in Las Vegas to eat and meet up with one of Jason's old mission companions. Then we kept on driving. The drive seriously was not bad at all by breaking it up in St. George. Our kids were great. Good thing we have a DVD player, a PSP, Haley's Barbie laptop, and all the other things to keep them occupied in the car. What did people do on road trips before all these neat inventions? Oh yeah, they actually talked!!! :) Just kidding, there was plenty of talking for us as well.

We stayed at the Super 8 Motel in Anaheim. Definitely not the nicest place around, but it was within walking distance to Disneyland, had free internet (except Jason brought the CHinese power cord for our laptop, so we were out of luck as far as that goes), had a swimming pool, and most importantly it was just down the street from the WorldMark where my sisters were staying. My kids love jumping on the beds in hotels and I always let them. Where else are there two beds right next to each other to do tricks on?
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We went to Disneyland for 4 days--Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. If we were to do it over, we would go Wednesday instead of Friday because we had hardly any lines until Friday. But, Friday was Haley's birthday and we wanted her to get all the perks from that. But, more on that later.

I won't go into details about every little thing we did. I'll just say that I love Disneyland! Britton's favorite rides were: Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Haley's favorite: The carousels and pretty much anything in Fantasy Land, and Soarin over California. My favorites are still Space Mountain and California Screamin. I'm totally a roller coaster girl, but I do enjoy just about everything. I was way impressed by how they changed up the submarine ride to be a Nemo ride--good move. And I loved the new Toy Story Mania--so much fun. I loved how uncrowded it was the whole time we were there and I also loved spending 4 days, so that we could just take it easy and enjoy everything. I didn't love how much we had to pay for food everyday, seriously, $6 for a corndog? Anyway, I guess you expect that though. Haley got to spend her birthday there and the promotion for the year is that you get in free on your birthday. Since we already had passes, she got a $60 gift card to spend in the park. She loved her "credit card". She also had a pin that she wore that said it was her birthday, so everywhere we went everyone would say, " Happy Birthday, Princess!" She loved it! She is the perfect age for that kind of attention. She was beaming the whole day. She picked out some really fun princess toys and then bought a light saber for Britton to build (always thinking of her brother). It was such a fun day and a great way to end a fun vacation week.

Waiting for the Bug's Life show
My cute family
Adorable
More bug eyes!
Not sure what this is :)
Another carousel!

Indiana Jones



Gotta love the face I'm making! I was leaning forward because Dylan and Destry wanted me to so that you could see them in the picture. So, I just end up looking weird. Oh well, they look cute! You can barely see Britton back there behind Dylan.


I think the carousels must be the easiest thing to take pictures on because I have about a hundred of them. That's really not all we did, I promise!

Britton!
Haley!
Dylan, Destry, Haley, Britton




Britton wiggling his loose tooth. He really wanted it to fall out at Disneyland, but no such luck.
Biz, Dar, and Ethan
Me and Haley on Small World
Seriously, more carousel pics?

Buzz
Thunder Mountain Railroad--Haley's first (and last) time on that one
Getting Aladdin's autograph

Waiting while people went on Indiana Jones--Haley was too short


Wednesday we took a break from Disneyland and drove to the beach. Our GPS took us the LONG way there and both my kids threw up in the car. Nice! It was raining and I was beginning to question our decision. But, when we finally arrived at the beach, the sun was out and the rain was gone. My kids love the beach and didn't even care that it was cold! They got in anyway and spent tons of time playing in the sand. They buried each other, collected seashells and seaweed, built sandcastles, and jumped the waves. I really hope we're able to have a beach house one day. When we got back, we went swimming and sat in the hot tub and then met up with my sisters for dinner. It was a fun day and a nice little break from Disneyland.