Disneyland 2010

What an adventure we had at Disneyland this year! We are so lucky to have my amazing brother, Dave, that gets us into Disneyland for free! It makes an otherwise very expensive trip actually affordable for our family. Soooo nice!!

Let me just start out by saying that these pictures may be a bit deceiving. In the past we have had nothing but amazingly fun days filled with excitement and laughter from our adorable children. Their energy and excitement is non-stop and we continually push our out-of-shape selves to keep up with their enthusiastic wonder. We all have a blast and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

This trip, however, was a bit tougher. In fact, it was just plain hard at times due mainly to our sweet little boy-child that we have, in the past, referred to as Captain Grouchy (or Captain Happy if you want to be sarcastic). We have determined that our Corban must be allergic to California because he didn't seem to be "right" the whole time that we were there. My brother, Dave and sister-in-law, Julie, probably don't have a good opinion of any of our kids after this trip, but for us Corb was especially hard to deal with.

So, with that said, (and no more negativity in my blog post) here are our happy pictures of our few days spent at Disneyland. This is my favorite picture of all of us waiting for the tea cup ride to start. Everyone's personalities are just shining!

When we got to the park we took Quincy to the little toddler potty's in the park's Baby Center at the end of Main Street. She was thrilled to have "little potty's" just her size and we didn't have a problem the rest of the time with having her go to the bathroom. Then we went to meet some of the fairies in Pixie Hollow. I wondered how Quincy would be with meeting the characters, but when she saw Rosetta and went running right up to her as fast as her little legs would go, I didn't worry any more. She was so excited to meet any and all of the characters that she could.
After the girls each got to meet Rosetta then they went and met Tinker Bell and Terrance. Thank goodness Terrance was there, because that was the only way we were able to get Corban to even be in the picture. All the fairies had little jackets on because it was a bit chilly while we were there. I didn't mind because it made them a bit more modest then they normally are. :)
After a few rides we headed over to California Adventure to see the Bug's Life stuff and then the girls and boys split up. The boys headed out to do some "boy rides" and get some lunch and the girls and I headed to Ariel's Grotto for lunch with the princesses. Ariel's Grotto might be an expensive lunch, but worth it to me to get to see 5 princesses and not have to stand in line to meet them. The girls were in heaven and I really enjoyed the lunch myself. We got to meet Snow White, Aurora, Mulan, Cinderella and, of course, Ariel.


I love this picture of the kids waiting for their turn on the tea cups. Overall the lines were not very long. That's the joy of going while most people are in school. I have sworn off Disneyland during the summer! It's not worth it to even go when the lines are so ridiculously long! In fact, we even got to stay on the Winnie The Pooh ride and go on it again there were so few people there at the time.




We ended the experience by taking a trip back to 1986 and boy those were some memories! Disneyland brought back the 3D show Captain EO for a limited time in tribute to Michael Jackson. I wondered if the kids would like it, and I shouldn't have worried, they thought it was awesome. And, I have to admit, so did I. What a classic!

We left the next day and drove the entire way to Utah in one day instead of splitting it up between 2 days. We were absolutely amazed that our little grouchy Corb was an angel through most of the drive. That's how we decided that he is just allergic to California (I hope he doesn't get called on his mission there :) I think that the kids were so tired that, in a way, they were grateful to have the excuse to just sit the whole day. And everyone took a nap in the car, which you have to understand, is a very rare thing for any of our kids to do. None of them sleep in the car!

I am both happy and sad to be home. I don't want to just get back to every day routines, I love vacation! But at the same time, routines are so good for the kids. Quincy is back on a really good potty schedule and Gabby and Corb are back in school. Everyone is happy and the house is peaceful. Was it a good vacation? Definitely. I would do it again even with the hard stuff we had to deal with!