Trip Summary - Chapter 1 California

All right, I will admit it, California was fabulous.....how can anyone not love the place (minus traffic) but I love it. Of course, I also do not know many 30 year olds who love Disneyland as much as me...Here is a re-cap of our adventure!


The Entry picture...where our clothes and faces are still clean and my hair is halfway decent. Taylor's face when she realizes there is a 2 hour line to see the princesses....that was of course the whole reason for the trip....according to Taylor.


I of course was thrilled that It's a small world ride was open again (after construction) I was excited to go.....Tye and Tate started immediately, "This is a Baby Ride" ..."I'm not going on some stupid ride with Dolls"...."This is crap (a saying my kids use way to much)"....Notice Tye's face in the next picture....he was not happy....

The ironic part, is once we got inside and started going through all the country's the boys liked it as much as Taylor. We would go around each corner and they would try to figure out what country we were in. We turned a corner into a farm and they screamed "Were in Wisconsin", the next corner was a desert and they yelled "Now were in Arizona".

Wes thought I was crazy when I said that was one of my funnest rides, but I have so many lifetime memories climbing on those boats with all my family over the years, that I loved it, now I have a family of my own, it's amazing how much time changes.






I honestly can't tell you how many times we just sat on the park benches, enjoyed the sunshine and nice weather and ate snacks. Seriously Disneyland makes a killing on my pocket book, by the time the snackfest is over! We can seriously inhale, churros, cotton candy (my favorite) lemonade freeze things, ice cream and Wes went on a limb and bought this huge Turkey leg.....it was out of control, my sister totally was grossed out, but my kids ate it up. Unbelievable!






This is how we roll at Disney...the problem is the kids want to race and my sister and husband can be a little competitive, but it's part of the fun! I won't even admit how many people we have run into!

So you can't go to Disneyland without trying on some of the crazy hats. I tried to talk my kids into buying those mickey ears with their spending money, and no way. It didn't even thrill them that they would embroider their names on them. They wanted these out of control hats that I honestly would not spend money on. (Honestly where would you even wear those????)

Tate, of course with the big clown hat......describes him perfect!

The kids loved that we put on the wedding hats, and started squealing when Wes kissed me....they think that is sooooo funny when Mom & Dad kiss! (If they only knew.....)

Tye, of course the Goofy Hat.

All right. For the first time we actually sat through the entire "Jedi Training Program" and luckily Tye was picked to participate in fighting "The Dark Side".....I am so not into Star Wars, but he thought he was pretty hot stuff up there fighting.

I only had one request. I wanted to take a family picture in front of the castle. As always, I get the shaft. The boys were off riding the rides so I asked my Sister to take Taylor & I picture. Just as I picked Taylor up from the stroller, her stroller fell on the ground and she totally started crying because she thought the wheat thins were going to spill....so much for our cute family picture in front of the castle.

Ok....you can't marry a cowboy from Wyoming, and not stop at the gun post. Look how serious they take this......You could scream... "Fire"..."Help"... and they wouldn't even budge or hear you!

Well as you guessed, my boys aren't into characters, standing in line to see them is a brutal process for them, but we just happened to bump into Woody & his friend. They grabbed my kids hands and started walking with them....it was actually really cute!

Some people don't like California Adventure as much as Disneyland, but we like it. I did manage to pull off a family picture this day!

I also so lucky that my lovely Sister always takes time to come with us! We all love her so much, you are fabulous!

The next two pictures are the "calm" before the "storm" type pictures. We thought we were being so sneaky and sly because we sneaked Taylor on the rapid ride, she's just a little too small. We were so excited, got on the tube, buckled up and ..........

made a GRAVE mistake putting Taylor in between Wes & Karry

She got SOAKED, i mean SOAKED. All she did was cry, this wave came cashing down on her, and it was brutal. I personally couldn't stop laughing which made her madder, but I did end up feeling sorry for her. Her clothes were so wet that we stripped her down and bought new ones. It didn't turn out as fun as planned, but it's another fun memory and that's what vacations are all about.

Have you ever wished for things, get your wish, and wonder why you wished for that. Note, example below. Tate has always been scared of fast rides, which has been tough because everyone else likes them. Well a new leaf was turned. He found himself liking it so much, we went on California Screaming 7 times......7 times.....in a row.....7 times....I am definitely getting old, 7 times about did me in!

We finally went into the Brother Bear exhibit, it actually was enjoyable just strolling along the trails. I loved this picture of Wes & Sissy hand in hand.

and Tate as "The Man" of the club house, he was awesome at the jungle gym!

and finally...we made it to the Princesses for Taylor, the boys got embarrassed because Ariel made them kiss her hands, but it was darling. Taylor could stay in there for hours talking to each princess posing for pictures and singing them songs. It melts my heart every time!



So that sums up 3 lovely days at Disneyland, truly one of the funnest places!