Disneyland Trip - Tuesday

Tuesday morning was a Magic Morning so everyone with park hopper passes got to go in at 9am instead of 10am. We went in and there were a bunch of characters so we met them all. The kids LOVED meeting the characters. Hint for any of you going to Disneyland: let your kids choose an autograph book from the gift shop for all the characters to sign. You can also put the picture of your kid with the character next to the signature. What a keepsake! We got the pictures printed today and put them in the books and my kids love it! Anyway, only Fantasyland was open for magic morning so it was a great time to get those rides in without lines.





Look at her sweet little hands...

After Fantasyland it was PRINCESS TIME!!!! Let me just tell you, meeting the princess' is the most amazing thing ever! There is usually a line (we waited about 20 min once and 45 min the other time) but it is so worth it! There are 3-4 princesses and they all have their own little area where they talk to the girls. They actually talk to each girl for about 5 min or so. It is amazing. Brynley was just beside herself. She hasn't stopped talking about it to this day.
This moment may or may not have brought tears to my eyes.

Belle was the nicest one we saw! She was so sweet and seemed very interested in everything Brynley said. It was insanely cute.


All the princesses treated Brynley like Aurora from Sleeping Beauty since that's who she was dressed as. They asked her about Prince Phillip and the fairies and everything.

Ariel was very nice too. She was cute and kept teasing Caleb saying she didn't trust him because he was a pirate and you can't trust pirates.





After princesses we headed over to California Adventure for the day. We had tons of fun there.


Caleb was tall enough for Tower of Terror so we asked if he wanted to go on it. He's actually been talking about it for weeks and was really excited for it. He knew all about it, scary hotel, drop from the 13th floor, etc. Even as prepared as he was, he still was really scared. This picture is not posed.

We were all a little nervous about Tower of Terror!


Grandma and Grandpa with the kids on the carousel in CA Adventure. They were so incredibly helpful. NEVER go without bringing grandparents! We could not have done it without you guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Uncle Dane was very helpful too. Never go without an Uncle either. :-)


We ended off the day with the Pixar Play Parade again! We loved it!

Disneyland Trip - Monday

Monday morning we left the Brown's early and headed to Disneyland. We checked into the hotel (Fairfield right across the street) and got everything into the room. Then we skipped off to Disneyland. Yes, we really did skip. :-)

I'll let the pictures do the talking. I'll just say, the kids were so incredibly good during the whole trip. There were no tantrums, not too much fighting, no melt downs, nothing. Aubrey was insanely easy. She took regular naps in her stroller for hours at a time and never protested being fed on the run or in the middle of a ride. Caleb suprised us all with his bravery and went on every single ride he was tall enough for. Which is every ride except for California Screamin, the big roller coaster at California Adventures. He did Space Mountain, Matterhorn, Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones, everything. He didn't necessarily LIKE them all. He did NOT like Indiana Jones and Tower of Terror. The whole time he was like "I don't like this, I don't like this..." on Indiana Jones. Lol. He hated Tower of Terror. But, hey, he wanted to go on it! (Now, he tries to tell me that he was just joking and he really did like them... hm...) He liked the rest though! Everything went much, much smoother than expected.


We missed you Kelly and Roger!

We got really wet on Splash Mountain! Did I mention the park was pretty much dead? We walked right up to Splash Mountain without stopping in any line at all. The first 2-3 hours of each day where like that, then people started coming. It never really got CROWDED though. We waited for 20 min max.













We got a little worn out by the end of the day...



We saw the Pixar Play parade at California Adventure Monday and Tuesday night. I loved it! The colors were bright, the music was jammin and the characters were awesome! Brynley tried to run right out into the parade here and security had to come. Oops...

Disneyland Trip - Sat and Sun

We left for CA early (8am) on Saturday morning. The kids were great in the car and the time flew by! We stayed at my good friend from high school and his family's house, Tyler and Kristi Brown. We had tons of fun visiting with them and letting the kids go crazy. Literally. Kristi was so sweet to welcome all 5 of us into her home especially in her 'almost done being pregnant' state. Thanks you guys so much for your hospitality! We loved hanging out with you!

Sunday morning Tyler made us all pancakes and we went to Claremont First ward (the ward I grew up in). It was so incredibly fun. My parents met us there and we had so much fun visiting with everybody we hadn't seen in at least 6 years. They even welcomed us over the pulpit! It was great! Then we went to visit our good friends, Gary and Sandy Riley. We haven't seen them in 6 years either and that was a lot of fun. Then we went to my Grandpa's house (Dad's dad). We visited with him and his wife for a long time and it was great. He kept saying over and over again "This is so great. I'm so glad you all came. This is so great." I really think we made his day by visiting and it made me so happy to see my kids interact with another great grandparent. It was really fun catching up with them.



After Grandpa's house we went to Huntington Beach. The kids loved walking on the pier and watching the surfers. It was very windy and thus pretty cold so we didn't even put our feet in the water but it was still a lot of fun to just go there and walk around.







After the beach, another good friend from High School, Kent, came over with his new wife, Nellie, for dinner at the Brown's. I have never met Nellie and hadn't seen Kent for about 5 years so that was a lot of fun staying up late and catching up. Yes, 11pm is now late for us. Pretty sad, huh? I meant to get a picture and I'm so mad that I forgot! Oh well, maybe next time. Thanks so much Kent and Nellie for coming so far to get together! We had a great time!