Disneyland--Day 2

By the time we awoke on Tuesday morning, Aunt Katie's family was there!! Most of the action that day was happening at the California Adventure park, so we decided to spend our day there. First up was seeing Mater and Lightening McQueen. Weston was not happy that he had to pose for a picture instead of checking these guys out!
At one point, he kept looking in McQueen's mouth. I wondered if he was either training to be a dentist, or waiting for Lightening to talk to him.
We were told that one of the best rides there was Toy Story. So we hopped in line for it. It was sort of a long line, so we had to entertain ourselves.
Aunt Katie had a book that Emily read to anyone who would listen.
Then Addy decided she needed a turn to read it all by herself.
And here Weston is realizing that he is glad that he doesn't have sisters. They kept bugging him!
Eventually we made it to get our glasses.
The kids in shades, or at least 3-D glasses.
Our Family Photo! Apparently Chad was too cool for the 3-D version!
Now, onto the ride! And a fun ride it was. I think Chad and Cole rode it 3 times over the course of the week and the girls and I rode it twice. We never did get very good at it though!
After that long line, we decided to go for the significantly shorter line, or at least the kids did. While I took them (yes, all of them) on the merry-go-round, the non-pregnant adults went on a roller coaster nearby. No one even fell off!
As we were heading to the next ride, we couldn't pass up putting some toys in a box!
I think Blake was trying to figure out what was going on and wondering why he wasn't included!
Next up on our to-do list was the very, very large Mickey Mouse Ferris Wheel. This ride went about as well as the Jungle Cruise! I think Emily was ok with it, but the other two wanted out as soon as we got moving! We even went in the non-swinging cars. I can only imagine how bad the other cars would have been for them!
Doesn't he look so excited to be there!
Blake also questioned if he would ever want sisters, aka more mothers. In this case though, they were actually helpful.
My kids, much to Damon's dismay I think, really loved talking to the characters, getting their signatures, and getting their pictures taken. So, when we happened upon Woody and the Green Army Man, they begged to get in line. Weston followed along because his cousins wanted to!
The Green Army Man even let Cole hold his walkie talkie for the picture!
By now, it was about time for the Pixar Parade. We had no idea what this entailed, but we were tired of walking and waiting in lines, so we decided to go check it out!
While we were waiting, Cole wanted his picture taken by this optical illusion. It looks like it keeps going, but it really doesn't.
Pretty soon, we could hear the cheers and the Incredibles showed up to train some new heros!
Apparently Cole had his hero look on because they picked him to be one of the trainees!
Even superheroes have to stretch out!
A little flexing of the muscles to show they are ready.
While they were getting ready, the evil guys showed up. (I'm sure they had a name, but I have no idea what it was!!)
Group huddle to devise a plan.
First plan, show them how strong we are.
Can he lift it? Yes he can!
I'm not sure if they were bored or enthralled. We'll pretend enthralled!
Then, pelt them with bombs (or beanbags)!
Finally, run really fast and create a wind that blows them away.
We have conquered the evil guys!
After the show, Chad took the girls back to take a nap so we could all handle them for the week, while the rest of us stayed and rode a variety of rides.
A bug ride
Another bug ride
Bumper cars
Monsters Inc., as well as several others that we didn't take pictures in.
And as a bonus, we ran into Sully from Monsters Inc.
We also watched the Muppets show (which we really liked) and the Bug's Life show (which wasn't quite as popular with Cole).
And while we didn't actually ride this ride, Cole still wanted his picture taken by the airplane.
My favorite part of the whole Disneyland experience (besides the excitement of my kids of course) was the World of Color show. It was utterly amazing. Between the choreography, the water movement, the colors, and the images projected on water, all of it was truly awesome!
Here are a few glimpses of the show. They don't come close to doing it justice!




What a day! Now back to the hotel to rest and recover for another day!

Disneyland--Day 1

As soon as we walked into the park, we walked right into some lines to see some characters. What a great start!! Goofy's line was the shortest, so we hopped in his line and got really excited to talk to him, everyone except for Addy!
He signed the books for the kids and we took a picture. The only problem was, Addy wanted nothing to do with him! So I had to be in the picture with Addy as far from him as possible, and leaning away to get even farther!
Minnie was right next to Goofy, so we went to see her next. It only took Goofy for the kids to figure it out. They had their books ready and waiting for Minnie to sign.
Apparently Minnie is much less scary than Goofy because Addy not only took her own book up to her, but also let Minnie give her a hug!
And, she stood in the picture all by herself, with Cole and Emily.
Since we had met some characters, we decided it was time to find some rides. After consulting the map, the kids decided they wanted to head over to the pirate area. So, we walked over that direction and hopped in the first short line we could find...The Jungle Cruise. This is a ride where you get on a tour boat and slowly cruise through a canal. The tour guide cracks silly puns and jokes and there are lots of fake animals that make noises around you.
After about 2 minutes on this ride, it became very apparent that it was not a good choice for our first ride. I don't know if the animals were too real looking or if it was the darkness that had fallen or something else, but the kids were in tears and begging to get off because they were scared.
We should have gone back a different day when it was daytime to see if the animals were really that scary, but we could never talk the kids back on it.
After that failure, we decided that maybe we should head more over to the kids area! On the way, we passed Tarzan's treehouse, so we stopped to explore it. That went marginally better, especially with the stuff at the end to play with and explore!
We finally made it over to the kids' area and found much more success!
They loved the Dumbo ride.
(Although not my best look!)
The carousel was very popular!
And even though it was late, they had fun while waiting in line to ride the train.
Casey Jr.'s Train caught some crazy Wild Animals!
Since we had a busy week ahead, we decided to finish our night by watching the fireworks and then heading back to our hotel.
The fireworks were awesome, complete with Tinkerbell flying through the air, a Star Wars battle, and all kinds of different themes and songs to go with the lights exploding in the air, all of course right above Sleeping Beauty's Castle. It turned into a very happy and magical night!
Time for bed so we can be happy for all of the adventures the next day!

We're Going on a Trip!!

My sister Katie and her family invited us to go to Disneyland with them. Chad and I figured the kids were at about the perfect age and it was a great time to go, so we agreed. At some point in our trip planning, we decided not to tell the kids where we were going. We decided it was going to be plenty of excitement and if we didn't have to deal with weeks of anticipation, we might all survive. So when it came time to go, Chad just told the kids that after church we were going on an adventure. They didn't seem to get suspicious at all, even when we had a rental car loaded with luggage, snacks, books, a port-a-crib, and a wide variety of other trip necessities.
We drove to Las Vegas on the first day and then to Anaheim on the second day. The trip went very smootly, much to my surprise. The kids were perfectly content to know that we were going to have fun but we had to drive for a while.
Cole entertained himself by reading,
And of course by playing Gameboy and eating treats!
Emily read, and read, and read, and read. I had gotten a Disney storybook that was over 300 pages that is full of classic Disney stories. By the time we got to Las Vegas, she had read over 1/2 of it.
At one point she did actually watch a movie, Sleeping Beauty of course!
Addy was significantly better than I ever imagined. She slept for part of the trip, colored, looked at books, and watched a movie or two.
Even with a fairly newly potty trained 2-year-old, we only stopped once each day much to their Dad's delight! Of course one of those happened to be on the side of the road because Addy couldn't hold it any longer and refused to just pee in the pullup that we had put on her. We had passed St. George and there wasn't really anywhere to stop. Addy thought it was a great adventure to pee in the dirt!
Once we got to Anaheim, the kids still had no idea what we were going to do. We even drove by Disneyland on our way to our hotel, but the kids weren't really paying attention.
We checked into the hotel and told them we were going to get on the shuttle bus. That was probably enough of an adventure for them. They think public transportation is lots of fun!!
(Although by this time I think Cole was really hoping we were headed to Disneyland!)
I'm wishing I had the video on instead of just taking pictures, but you can still see the excitement on their faces when we got off the shuttle and Chad revealed to them where we were!
Did he really just say what I think he said?
The Happy Dance!
Bring on Disneyland!!

Here Comes Trouble!

Watch out boys, the girls in our family have you doubled up now...or at least we will in June! Watch out future boyfriends, I'm pretty sure with a Dad and a big brother like yours, you will be in for a lot of interrogation! Isn't it ironic that the least girlie-girl in my family now will have the most girls!!
Yes, that's right, it's another girl!!
Here is another picture. (The face would have been more exciting, but it doesn't look like a face to me. At least I can see the arm and leg here. You'd think after 4 of these I would be able to pick things out...Nope!!)
At least I will be justified in continuing to shop for girl clothes!!