Vacation Day 2, Day 1 in Disneyland

Our first day in the park was very exciting!!! Big tip for anyone planning a trip, put your kids name on their shirt! It was so neat how EVERYONE working at Disneyland would call the kids by their name.  They thought it was the coolest thing ever! At one point I asked Aubrey how does everyone know your name and her answer was, "mom Goofy called everyone last night and told them I was coming!" It was the cutest thing ever and made for a very special first day. 

 Meeting all the characters is a must for us. We love seeing the kids interact with them and it is a fun challenge to get to see as many as we can.  Being that we were in the park for 5 days we had plenty of time to ride all the rides, see all the shows and meet all the characters.  Aubrey still looks through her book with autographs and pictures from the last time we went.

 Here's a new one this year:

 Merida from Brave one of Aubrey's favorite.

Small World our very favorite ride of all times! Carter is still singing the song!

 Another one of our favorite rides is the Winnie the pooh ride.  I think we road it about 8 times this trip.

 This trip Aubrey was a lot more cautious about rides.  Last time she went on everything! This time she was much more worried and would ask "does it go fast? Are there hills? Is it Scary?" Since last trip she was to short for Indiana Jones I thought it would be a fun one for us to go on.  I knew it was a bit of a thriller but didn't remember it being that bad so I got her to go on with me.  Bad idea!! After spending the whole ride holding her tight and hearing her scream I learned my lesson to not push.  She did love the Pirates of the Caribbean which has hills and by the end of the trip was more adventurist.  Poor Carter was ready for any adventure but being 38 inches tall (the cowboy boots that I brought didn't work) he was limited on what big rides he could go on.  

 The kids love this picture.  Aubrey still talks about Sleeping beauty using her head as a table.

 Well after a busy morning and early afternoon we headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and then to get ready again and go back in the park.

 For dinner that night we decided on the Rain forest Cafe in Downtown Disney.  We took the Montreal from Tomorrow land right to the restaurant.

 Surprisingly I only took one picture at the restaurant.  Carter fell a sleep and Aubrey was scared of the huge ape that was by our table.

 On our walk back to the park we were going to go back into Disneyland but our curiosity got the best of us so we headed into California Adventure to check out the new Cars land (AKA Carter's Heaven on Earth).

 It was AWESOME!!!! Very cool! Way to go Disney!  Since Tuesday was are day at California Adventure we just walked around and saved the rides for the next day.

On to the bug life show

 Aubrey used some of her graduation money and trip money to buy Marida's bow and arrow which she has wanted forever! How fun for to remember she got it as Disneyland.  She had fun shooting the bulls eye dad made on the mirror.

Day 2 of Vacation came to an end and we were excited for day 3.

Disneyland Vacation Day 1

We just got home from our week long vacation to Disneyland, it was a blast!!!!!! We had so much fun counting down the days as a family.  It was also a great way for the kids to work on their days of the week and counting.  

 The long wait finally arrived on Sunday June 9th.  I almost had a nervous break down on Saturday night when Aubrey told us her stomach hurt and she had a temperature of 102! I thought for sure she had the flu and that it would quickly pass through the whole family and our week long vacation we were very excited about was not going to happen.  She drank lots of fluids and had a great night of rest and in the morning was fine and we all were fine what a blessing!!!  Our excitement woke Spencer and I up at around 3:30am and we could not get back to sleep so we decided to get up and pack the car and get on the road by 5am. I had fun making car baskets for the kids filled with activities to keep them busy.

After we got the car packed we quietly got the kids and carried them to the car in hope that they would stay a sleep for a couple of hours.  They didn't sleep but they were silent and a little out of it for the first hour of the trip.  The other 3.5 hours went really quick.  We stopped for breakfast in Bakersfield and then continued on.  The kids were great!! We arrived to Disneyland at 10:30am!!! We made awesome time.  It was too early to check in to our hotel which was the Best Western right across the street from Disneyland!!! Excellent location!! Nice hotel and the fact that they served hot breakfast every morning for free was a big perk.  Our room was on the 1st floor which was great with the stroller.  We loved the pool and only being a 5 minute walk to Disneyland.  We parked our car and headed into Downtown Disney since we wanted to save our 5 day park pass for Monday-Friday.    

The Lego store is awesome!!!

The kids even got to build their own car and race it.

We went and checked out the Disneyland hotel.

A time share guy stopped us while walking around and since we had time to kill we went on their tour.  The kids got to play in a fun room (Carter thought that was Disneyland) while we listened to their spill.  Very interesting and since Disney is our favorite travel destination we are strongly considering it.  They have resorts in Hawaii, Florida, Disney Cruise lines, Europe and of course Disneyland.  In return for doing that we got 12 fast passes to use through out our trip on any ride, they came in handy.  We finally got to check in and get ready for our dinner at Goofy's Kitchen.   

So much fun seeing the kids meet their favorite characters.  It was a great idea to do this on a day that we weren't in the park so we could still get the Disney experience.  Amazing food!!  Very fun night! Back to the hotel to get ready for Day 1!!