First Trip to Disneyland!

We survived our four day adventure down to Disneyland and back!   The drive took us about 7 hours each way, and they went surprisingly well.   For the trip down, we woke everyone up at 4am, and just put them in the car, pjs and all thinking that the kids could just keep sleeping.  It didn't really work, as just the excitement of getting into the car while it was still dark out seemed to actually wake all of them up, but eventually they all took a small nap at some point on the trip.  We certainly beat all of the traffic leaving that early, and it actually got us down there before noon, so we could go right into the park.  By the time we did get to the park, it was blazing hot, and very crowded though, so we were all a bit overwhelmed...so what ride did we jump on first to avoid the crowd, get some shade, and ease the girls into the idea of rides- It's a Small World!!  All three of the kids got off that ride saying "Can we do it again?", no joke.  On our two full days at the park, we got up early and took advantage of the one hour early admission that hotel guests receive at 7am, and it was totally and completely worth it.  We'd stay for 3-4 hours, and then head back to the hotel for pool and nap time when the heat and the crowds were the worst.  We'd head back over 4:30/5:00ish and stay through the night shows until 10:00.  The cool mornings and lit up, uncrowded streets at night were perfect for us.   We could not have maneuvered Disneyland without my sister though, as most big rides had height requirements that only Jake could ride on.  The girls are at their peak of separation anxiety with me currently, so I couldn't leave them and ride with Jake, therefore Josh and Jake had a lot of bonding time on the cool big rides.   My sister helped greatly with entertaining the girls or helping with little toddler rides while the boys explored elsewhere.   All in all though, the girls could actually go on plenty of rides to keep us busy.  I think it worked out to be 35 different rides that we were able to get on throughout our visit, and many of them multiple times over when there were no lines in the morning.  We were most impressed with California Adventure that didn't exist back when Josh and I went as kids- it's really clean and fresh and really cool to walk through.   Poor Disneyland feels pretty outdated now, nothing really new and pretty bad food options.   It does have some great parades though and the kids love, love, love to see all of the dressed up characters!  Many thanks to Bill and Lee again for the generous Christmas gift which started pushing us to take this adventure.   We've made many notes for next time, and the kids can't stop talking about the characters they met, which makes it all worth it!

 

 The character breakfast was one of the best investments ever- Jake was in complete heaven being able to talk to characters without the crowds.  The girls were petrified of them when they came close, but liked to wave at them from afar. 

 

 

 World of Colors show at California Adventures:

 

 The amazing Tia

 

 

  

Finally a family shot

It's very rare for us to get a picture of all five of us- not sure why, but we just never remember to make a point to do it.   But we now have a fun one:

Throwback Thursday

The girls love to watch old videos of themselves as babies on my phone.  This one video just makes me laugh- Jake is so small, but trying so hard, and the girls are already totally in love with him:

The Big B-Day

We had a celebration with my parents and sister as we were packing up from Aptos- they were so thoughtful to think about decorating and bringing gifts down as an early surprise.  The kids had fun opening my gifts of course, but Addy and Colbie are still too scared of candles to help with those...
It's going to be another year of adventure for sure!

  

 This one of Addy may be a keeper to put in her wedding slideshow someday...

Even More Aptos

More beach time of course!  These kids could go every single day I think!

 

The kids covered Granddaddy in sand- they were so confused by the concept, but had such fun covering him up.

 The kids met their first banana slug at the cabin:

More Aptos

We explored the Marine Science Center and then the Boardwalk next on our adventure:

Building a sand city on the Boardwalk beach- pretty cool...

 A little bocce fun