Our Disneyland Adventure!

We've been home from Disneyland for four days now and I finally feel ready to blog about it. It was a fantastic family vacation, and we made some really special memories. Our first day in the park was so much fun. As per suggestion we did Pirates of the Caribbean first, then made our way to the back of the park. We went on several rides the first day, and watched the Jedi Training Academy show. We did some shopping (the kids were each given $20.00 that they could spend at D-land.) We were able to bring my mom with us to help with the kids. This made such a huge difference in our flexibility with the big kids. Around 1:00pm the first day we went back to the condo and had a quick bite to eat. Then Jason, the three big kids, and I went back to the park. We ran around and played until around 9:00pm. My favorite moment of the day was when we went onto "Star Tours". It's a really dated ride, and they are replacing it with something new next month but my family absolutely loved it! One, because we're huge star wars fans, and second because the little kids totally thought it was real. It takes you on a simulated outer-space ride, and Phoebe was completely floored because she thought we had just gone out to space. She kept saying "That was a real trip mom!" Her face during the ride was too much! After we were done at the park we walked across the street to the ihop and ate huge amounts of food. Phoebe fell asleep in the booth, and Jason had to carry her back to the bus stop. It was a really fun night. The next day we decided to try California Adventure. It was a really difficult morning. Everyone was super tired, and all of us were a little bit snippy. We made it through the morning, then we all went back to the condo. We decided to have my mom take the big kids back to the park for the evening and Jason and I stayed with the little ones. They got to do the street parade, and see some evening stuff that wouldn't hold the little kids attention. California Adventure is not geared towards little ones as much as D-land, so there's just not that much for them to do. Day three of the park was more of the same. Us with just the big kids for the second part of the day, mom taking the little one's back home after lunch. We all did the "Maliboomer" which was so fun. It gives us the giggles bad. Then Jason, Payton, and I did California Screamin. Parker wanted nothing to do with that, he's not much of a roller coaster guy. Then we did "Grizzley River Rapids". We had a lot of fun on that. Payton was the only one of us that got really wet. Starving again, we went to "Tony Romas" and ate ribs. We walked to MCD's to get some dessert and then decided to hop on the bus and get home. It was a good long day. Our fourth day, and the hottest of the week 81 degrees in February, we went and spent the day at Huntington Beach.

It was so surreal, I can't believe that people actually live that life. Surfing in the middle of the day, tons of people walking/running up and down the beach. There were dolphins out in the wake about a 1/4 mile off shore. We had a really nice relaxing day at the ocean. Phoebe and Payton collected shells, Parker made structures with all the washed up bamboo along the beach. Paxton made certain we weren't bothered by the seagulls and chased all of them away. We got enough sun to pink up, and warm our bones. Thursday we went to the park again. Around 3pm everyone left except Jason and I. This was our date night, and we had a really nice evening. We rode all of the rides that we wanted to ride, Tower of Terror, Cal Screamin (twice), Swinging Gondolas, The Maliboomer, and others. It was a great date. We got ice cream on Main Street USA, and it was amazing. We ate dinner outside of the park at Bubba Gump Shrimp CO. We ate ourselves sick, everything was too good. The last day in the park everyone got to pick their favorite ride and that's what we did. Payton's was California Screamin, Phoebe did it with us and liked it! Parker's was Space Mountain, Grandma Suzie did Great moments with Mr. Lincoln, and Jungle Cruise. Paxton was Buzz Lightyear Blasters, and Phoebe's was splash mountain & soarin over California. After the best corn dogs ever Jason and I took the little kids home to swim. We spent the rest of the day/evening packing up and cleaning the condo. It was an amazing family vacation, and it's always such a treat to get out of Klamath Falls in February. We were blessed with great weather, and generous family. Having my mom with us was such a gift. We wouldn't have been able to do half as much with out her there. We hope to be able to go back in about 3 years.

Phoebe got picked to be in the High School Musical dance party!