Bonus Disneyland Trip

Bonus! Chris' parents got an amazing deal on a couple condos in Newport Beach if they would just listen to a little speech about time-shares. Lucky for us, we got to share in the goodness and also lucky that Disneyland isn't too far away from the condos. So, off we went on a super quick fun weekend in Disneyland! Chris didn't have any time off, so we left Friday after work and got into Newport at almost 11pm. Then the next morning we got up bright and early to get into the park. We didn't tell the kids that we were going to Disneyland, so it was a big happy surprise for them. The weather is COLD in January, but that didn't stop us from having a great time. There are 275 pictures of just one day because we had so much fun playing with our new camera!

Wish I could squeeze more in this collage, but just be grateful I didn't use all 275 pictures!

The next day, we attended church in a Newport Beach ward. After church we had to get back to AZ so Chris could go back to work on Monday. Wish we could have stayed longer, but I'll take all I can get of The Happiest Place on Earth.

Phineas and Ferb! LIVE!

On the Disney channel, there is a show called Phineas and Ferb. The kids love it, and let's be honest...it's one of Chris' favorite shows too. Disney productions put on a live show and brought it to Phoenix and we were lucky enough to go with our Partridge fam. The kids had a blast and it was a great show!

Cute family waiting for the show to begin.

Girls with a cast member

Tada! Fun show!

After the show as we were walking to the cars, the kids noticed the huge basketball by the arena. Here's their best attempt at "picking it up" minus Katelyn who is doing a dance pose next to it.

And a trip to downtown would not be complete without a stop at Hard Rock Cafe. Yum!

Disney on Ice

We got to go to Disney on Ice again this year! This year they celebrated all the holidays. The kids (big and little) were all excited. Our seats were on the very first row. We literally had to make sure the kids didn't step too far in front of our legs because they would be on the ice (and making the ushers mad at us)! Here are some of the great pictures we got (bonus of being on the front row):

Adam just might be thinking about going on the ice. 

Everyone is excited for the show to start.
Katelyn had something in her eye....sad eye.

Birthday celebration

Halloween celebration. 
Not the kids' favorite, but the special effects were great.

Valentines celebration. 
All the Disney princesses and princes were there.

Summer celebration. Yes, that is fire on the ice!

Christmas celebration. At the end they made snow fall.
I like that kind of snow.
It's pretty and I don't have to shovel it.

Dancing in Disneyland! (cont...)

So to keep the tradition alive...Saturday had a clothes color assignment too. It was "grey day." To start off the day we got ready to dance! We were so thankful that our time slot to dance was first thing in the morning (well, late morning, but the first show). It made it easy to just get ready in the morning to dance, and then we had the rest of the day to enjoy in the Park. The girls all danced really well. Good job, Katelyn!

Waiting with the group to enter the Park with their Disney escort.

Megan is too young to dance at Disneyland, so she started climbing letters while we waited to drop off Katelyn.

I love this picture of Katelyn and her sassy dance moves. She's the cute one on the right of the picture. Swing those hips, Katelyn!

 The rest of the day was spent enjoying the Park again. Here's the "grey day" collage.

This was a pretty adventurous day for Megan and me. To preface this story, I have to say that I don't do the rides that have a big drop. I don't really like them. As I drop and am in the free-fall state, I kind of hold my breath and stop breathing. Not a good idea, but I'd have to say, better than throwing up! I learned this as a teenager and have avoided those kind of rides ever since. I don't mind going on fast roller coasters, and I don't mind going upside down. It's just that free fall that gets me. So, now the story. One of Megan's favorite rides is the Jumping Jellyfish in California Adventure. It's an easy drop. Just enough to have your stomach do a little jump but not enough to get scared. For some reason, I mentioned to her that the Tower of Terror was like the Jumping Jellyfish, just bigger and faster. Well, then she wanted to go on that ride. We tried to convince her that she would not like the ride and that it would be too fast. I think Chris and I were hoping that she'd be too short to ride the ride, but as it turns out, she's not. There was no good reason to not let her go on the ride, so we said we could try it. So, of course Megan wanted me to go on the ride with her. I told Chris he had to come too to help me! In the end, for me the ride wasn't too bad. Not my idea of fun, but I'm still breathing! Megan on the other hand said she never wants to ride the Tower of Terror ever again. She held on to Chris pretty tight and screamed her way down. I think she'll be sticking with Jumping Jellyfish from here on out.

Dancing in Disneyland!

Katelyn is finally old enough to dance in Disneyland! I know, your thinking, "but weren't you just in Disneyland in August." Yup. Thanks to Jeanne's School of Dance and Katelyn and 2 amazing sister-in-laws who teach dance, we got to do Disneyland a second time this year. The dancers were scheduled to dance on Saturday morning, so we got to the Happiest Place on Earth Thursday night so we could have one whole day in the park. If you know my family, you know we dress in the same color. So much easier to find your group in the crowd! So, Friday was "red day." Then I had the happy surprise to find out that my family had decided to celebrate my birthday. When we met at the fireplace at the Grand Californian, I was given a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse style adventure to collect my presents throughout the day. It was so much fun!

Here's our best family picture as we wait to enter the park. (Megan really was excited to be there even though she's not smiling in this picture, and Adam just wanted out of his stroller already!)

Here's a picture of all the birthday treats and presents I got throughout the day. Thank you Kaley and Amy for your crazy, fun, creative brain! It made me feel special all day!

I just love seeing the kids in Disneyland! Here's a collage of our fabulous "red day."

One of the presents I got was to have 3 hours with just Chris in the park and the rest of the family would watch my kids. We chose to leave just after dinner and enjoy a date! Chris chose to take me to Captain E-O because I had never (to my recollection) seen it before. It was definitely interesting! We then went on some rides. What a difference it is to stand in line without kids!

Let's ROCK! One more day in Disneyland!

We woke up on this day 3 of our celebration weekend and made it to the fireplace early, so there was time for another family picture. Going to Disneyland has got to be the least relaxing, most work, wonderfully awesome vacation there is.  When it's all over, you can't hardly move from being so tired, but it's all worth it for the memories we create together.

Don't let the girls fool you, they're not really tired.

Today is last chance day, so whatever someone missed or didn't go on enough was where we went.  On another round of Autopia, Adam hung back and enjoyed a blueberry muffin.  A new favorite, we've discovered.  I rode with Megan, while Bradley and Katelyn teamed up behind me.

Mmmmm...blueberry!

Ready to ride

Driving Miss Daisy

Adam's not quite feeling the family picture anymore.

Back over in California Adventure, we let the kids kinda guide us to where they wanted to go.  On the way to Paradise Pier, I had to stop and take a picture of the Mickey Ferris Wheel.  You can pretend that we're riding it, but we really aren't. :)

On the way to Toy Story Mania, Katelyn and Megan considered a future as a toy.  Fortunately, they just stayed in the box long enough for some pictures and then rejoined us for the rides.  Adam realized that he can still go on rides even when he's asleep - as long as he just hangs on to Mommy!

We put the 'action' in Action Figures

Just happy to be here!

Who says you have to be awake for the rides?

Kaley and Chase hung with us so we could caravan home together.

Can you guess Megan's favorite mode of transportation?

Adam still enjoyed a few more rides awake too, and then it was time to bid adieu to this vacation.  The kids picked their favorite letters and had a last bit of fun before jumping back in the car for the long ride home.  But hey, at least Adam got to enjoy a Rice Krispy treat on the way!

I'm such a big boy!

'O' Megan

I can do that too!

Best picture of the trip?

Keep these coming and we'll do just fine together.

We love every chance to spend together as a family, and are so grateful for this trip to Big D.  I think you could drop us just about anywhere and we'd all be glad to spend good family time together.  But as Five For Fighting sings, "it's a nice day, when you wake up in Disneyland."  Hope to wake up again there someday!

Happy Birthday Amy, it's Green Day!

Keeping the Celebration theme going, today we celebrated Amy's birthday by wearing new green shirts that magically appeared in this Happiest Place on Earth.  We usually are running so fast first thing in the morning that we never stop for a classic "castle" picture, so this time we did.  It's one of my favorites, especially since pictures of the whole family are rare (I'm usually the one behind the lens).

Smile big, this is for the blog!

Near the castle is one of the places where a princess shows up sometime during the day.  We found Ariel so the girls got to enjoy while Adam just explored.

Sometimes it is better above the sea!

I see the girls over there, and I'm happier right here.

After the fun at the castle, we met up and conquered Fantasyland.  Adam got to ride with Cassi on the Casey Jr. Train.

I think I can...I think I can...escape!

Katelyn and Megan still like to listen to "It's a Small World" to go to bed at nighttime, so we had to ride those quiet boats.  It's also one of the few rides Mom likes to go on so it was a "whole fam" party (we take up at least two boats when we're all together like this).

Small world, the perfect quiet time at Big D

I haven't been to Tom Sawyer's Island since it was overrun by Pirates.  We didn't go there before the pirates either, but I was surprised how big it is.  We assigned at least 1 adult to every couple kids.  I snapped this shot of Joshua and Megan when they paused from running around.

We could tell you we're twins and you might believe us.

At lunch, Adam figured out what to do with the boxes when they're empty.

Have you ever noticed the fountain on the Autopia?

See you tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Maybe it's self-serving to wish myself a happy birthday, but let me break it down.  My birthday is on August 3.  Because of all the stuff going on with fooling the kids about the trip to Disneyland, I kept telling Cassi not to worry about my birthday until after the trip.  I've celebrated a handful of times not on my actual day, so it's no big deal.  Plus, I'm not 8, I don't expect a big hullaballoo for my birthday anyway.

So we had early entry today and that meant call time was at the big fireplace at something like 6:30.  It's amazing sometimes how little sleep and how tired I end up on our vacations to Disneyland.  I think about those old commercials where everyone is too excited to sleep before they get there.  Once you're there, you don't want to stop long enough to sleep either, you're just too excited!  Anyway, at the fireplace we were by 6:30 for family prayer and marching orders.  We've gotten into the habit of having a certain colored shirt for each day we're at the park.  It's fun, and lot easier to spot everyone, or catch up in line to the group.  It has to be a bright color though.  My mom usually drives herself about crazy as she scours the countryside to find all the coordinating shirts in the right sizes leading up to the trip.  (I don't know if Mom ever hears about it, but we get comments all the time, in line and such, that the t-shirt idea is a great idea.)  This time was no different, but the color they picked was orange, my favorite color.

Break out the Orange, it's my birthday (kinda)!

At the fireplace, during marching orders, I learned that the reason I couldn't get Cassi to destress about my birthday before the trip was because we were celebrating my birthday on the trip!  It wasn't just Orange Day, it was "Everyone pay homage to me" Day.  FUN!  They made it Phineas and Ferb -themed, and I was a secret agent who had to stop Doof from doing something nefarious.  I had to solve Disneyland trivia puzzles during the day to get my presents.  It was a lot of fun, and I came away with a new Wii game, iTunes card, a new shirt, and other fun stuff.

We started out in Disneyland and hit the favorites of Autopia and Astro Blasters in Tomorrowland (we're all getting pretty good at Astro Blasters by the way, Ryan made it to #3 on the leader board one day, and Dad whooped us all with somewhere around a 1 million point score).  After Tomorrowland, we hiked over to California Adventure to get FastPasses for the new night show World of Color (crazy awesome show, more later).

Cute girls cruisin' in Cali

This was my high score for the day, though not my highest rank (made it to #5)

We trekked through California Adventure, hitting all the rides the kids wanted to, and even convinced my Mom to try out Soarin' Over California.  It's definitely a favorite ride.  My mom usually sticks to the Teacups and Small World, but she branched out this trip.  Maybe we built it up too much, but I'm afraid she wasn't as impressed as I am with it.  Either way, it was fun that she went on it with us.

We always appreciate Uncle Chase's shoulders on these adventures!

The girls were excited to spot Minnie after our Soarin' good time

One thing I love, now as a parent, is to find the rides that the kids love, and introduce them (height-permitting of course) to some of the rides I love.  Megan found a new favorite called Jumping Jellyfish.  It's Tower of Terror for the little kids.  Katelyn decided she's not afraid of anything, and actually chose Tower of Terror to go on with me.  I kept my hand on her leg the whole time so she could sense me there, but she did great, and loved it enough to ask for more!  As for Adam, he has so far spent almost all of his waking time in this wonderful land in a stroller, so I tried to find a few times when he could just (safely) wander and explore.  It's fun to see him investigate and think and figure things out.  I had to make sure he didn't stick his head through the fence bars, but other than that, he got to be a somewhat free spirit, and I think he liked it.

Jumpin' Jehosephat! No, it's Jumpin' Jellyfish!

Brave face now, just try to keep that smile in the elevator!

This is probably my favorite picture of the whole trip.  It's 100% pure joy.

We of course went on Toy Story Mania, and even brought Adam.  He sat with me, and had a lot of fun.  Megan learned that she can hang upside down on almost any set of bars with her feet and swing around (until we catch her, that is).  For the first time, we did the Animation Workshop, which was a lot of fun for me, and I think the kids liked it too.  We drew Dale, of Chip 'n Dale fame.  I've always wanted to learn to draw better (even took Drawing 101 at BYU), but am just not that good.  I can do some OK imitation stuff, but nothing that would make it beyond the fridge.  So this activity was particularly fun for me.

One size fits all most

You can see Katelyn getting ready to join in the monkey fun

Last activity for the day was World of Color.  I've seen the fountains at Bellagio, and the Dancing Waters at the Disneyland Hotel, and other water shows here and there and liked them, and I've always loved Fantasmic.  Well, World of Colors takes all the others and just tells them to go hide under a rock, because this was AMAZING!  They would shoot the big tall fountains (the following are all heights as I guess, absolutely not scientific) say 80 feet in the air and that looked impressive.  Then another section would come and they'd double that height.  And it wasn't just two or three big guns, it was like 40 that could do that.  From a techno-geek perspective, I think I shed a tear.  From a Disney-lover perspective, you're just about in heaven.

Needless to say, after that high, we floated down and made our way back to the hotel to enjoy some rest, in time for the next day of celebrations.  I'm so glad Cassi and everyone else put in all the work to make my 31st birthday one I'll never forget.  Really, it was way better than those in Kanab! :)