Disneyland Info

So while this trip is still fresh in my mind I decided to put together a list of information regarding all things Disneyland.  I did a good amount of research beforehand, and talked to lots of friends about their park experience.  It was great to go in armed with info.  Disneyland truly is overwhelming, and I think that if you don't go in with a plan it's inevitable you will waste alot of time deciding what to do next.  Here's a little bit of what I learned, hope it's helpful.

Transportation: We stayed at a timeshare condo that was about 3 city blocks away from the entrance to the park. Not too far, but far enough that walking with the kids everyday would really cut into our park energy. We opted for the ART (Anaheim Resort Transit)bus. The cost was $4.00 per day per adult, or $16.00 for a 5 day adult pass. We did the 5 day pass since we had five day park hopper passes. It was $16.00 for Jason, Parker, and myself. Paxton was free, 3 and under ride free with adult. And the girls, up to age 10 or 11 were $1.00 a day, or $4.00 for the four day pass. Doing this made transportation to the park a no brainer. To park in one of the park lots it is $14.00 a day. This lot is further away than where the ART drops you off and picks you up. Our bus stop was right outside the entrance to our hotel, and they even had a kiosk in the lobby to purchase the passes.

Food: Food inside the park is expensive, no doubt about it. While we were there we did pack a lot of food in, especially drinks. The drinks are really expensive. The park prefers you to not bring food into the park, but of the twenty or so different times we went in and out of the park no one ever said anything about our snacks. I had those little cinch sack back packs for mostly everyone. We used those to carry water, small little 12oz bottles of pop, frozen capri suns, crackers, bagels, string cheese, baby carrots, granola bars. With a nice size breakfast these kinds of snacks usually held us through till 1-2pm. Inside the park there are some things that are definitely worth shelling out the money for.  Here's the prices of things we bought.

Disneyland:

Ice cream on Main Street- Huge Double Scoop dipped waffle cone $4.99-Yummy!
Churros-$3.50 (not the best deal, but they are so good.)
Big Thunder Ranch all You Can Eat Bar B Que - $20.00 a head. Maybe not the best deal for kids, but for just the adults it is by far the cheapest complete restaurant meal you'll find in the park.  Ribs, incredible roasted chicken, all the fixens.
Bottled coke and water- $3.75! Definitely bring your own!  I brought in those cute little 12oz diet coke bottles.
Pizza slice at the Pizza Port-$6.99 Thick super bready crust, a substantial slice.
Popcorn-$3.25 a necessity for little ones when waiting in long lines.

California Adventure:

Turkey Leg- $8.00 Huge, delicious, perfect.  My 11 year old got this for lunch, everyone he walked past said "Oh My, that's huge".
Corn Dog at the Farmer's Market- $5.50 Huge corn dog, comes in a basket with fries. A really good value.

Food outside the park:  We ate at Mc Donald's, Tony Roma's, and IHop (kids eat for free from 4-midnight).

Ride Max and Fast Passes-
There is a computer program called "Ride Max" that will put together a schedule for you based on the information (rides) you put into it. This service was offered free from our concierge desk at the hotel, and I think most hotels around the park offer this. The first two days at the park we opted to do our own thing. We spent a lot of time waiting in lines, and crisscrossing aimlessly around the park. The third day we decided to try the ride max out. We put in the rides we still needed to try out, and it generated a schedule for us based on wait times, start times, fast pass schedules. (More on Fast Pass later.) The schedule was really helpful in making certain that we used our time most efficiently, and had less line wait time.

Fast Pass:  Some of the more popular rides in the park offer two lines.  One is the standby line, that's the normal  walk up  and wait line.  The other is the Fast Pass line.  This line is given preference over the standby, and allows for significantly reduced wait time,  and sometimes none at all.  You can get two fast passes for different rides out at a time, these are connected to your ticket barcode.  Once your time is up on the fast passes you can pull more.  Each fastpass kiosk has the return time posted.  Say you went to space mountain at 1:00pm to pull a fast pass the return time might be something like between 2:30-3:30 for your redemption.   Since we had my mom with us her and I would typically wait in a ride line with the kids, while Jason would be the "runner".  He had all of our tickets tucked safely in his wallet, so he would run and get  fast passes for everyone while we took the kids on a little ride.  On our date night Jason and I pulled a fastpass for california screamin, we went and did some other rides, but still had 35 minutes until our fast passes were valid so we just waited in Standby and rode.  Once we were done with the ride we got off, wen't into the fastpass line and got to go on again immediately.  It was a blast.  For parents with little kids you can also use the "rider switch passes".  These allow you to wait in line as a family, then when one of you has to stay off the ride with the little one you can stay at the front of the line wait for your spouse and other kids to ride.  As soon as they are done the other parent stays with the little one, and you get to go on the ride no waiting.  Your allowed to bring one of the bigger kids to ride with you again, so one of the kids gets to go on twice.  Pretty sweet.

Just some other tips:
Set a spending limit:  For souvenirs inside the park I gave my kids a $20.00 limit.  We got that out of the way the first day, and they were so great about it.  They all found something inside that range (Phoebe was the only one who went over $5.00, no biggie) then they were done.  They didn't ask for another thing for the rest of the time.
Food inside the park:  I wasn't super set on this, just conscience really.  We really did good about eating a big breakfast at the condo, then packing in snacks.  I knew I didn't want to go over $50.00 a day on park food and we never did.  We never felt deprived, if we wanted something we went ahead and got it.
Go to City Hall:  Take the time to go to City Hall and get some buttons.  We went and got our "1st visit" buttons.  Then on our date night Jason and I went and got some "Anniversary" buttons.  They have "Celebrating" buttons for anything.  These are free, and a fun thing to collect.  Another souvenir idea is to purchase "Disney Dollars".  You can get these in different denominations as low as $1.00, that will be the cheapest keepsake you can buy in the park.
Take a time out:  My mom wanted to go into some shops on Main St and we didn't want to take the little ones in, so Jason and I took them to Micky's Theater.  It's just a little round room with six different screens playing classic micky cartoons.  We sat in there with the little kids for about half an hour.  It was a great time out for us and the kids.  Plus there was hardly anyone in there, a much needed break from the big crowds and the sun.

Hope this is helpful, just writing it down makes me want to go back again!  Three years won't be soon enough!

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!

Four Days.....

We leave for Disneyland in four days! Jason and I have never been to Disneyland. Parker went when he was 3, so he really doesn't remember it, and the other kids have never been as well. I'm super excited, and a little bit nervous. I feel like we've planned well, and I've done my research but now that the times come I can't remember anything! I've got so much to get ready! I am super grateful to the Bowlby's for being so generous in letting us use their timeshare to stay at. There's no way we could afford seven days in the magic kingdom inside or outside of the gates without it. I've been checking the forecast and it's holding in the 70's! I cannot wait to be warm. If you have any advice send it my way!

Happy Anniversary

Today is my and Jason's 12th wedding anniversary. It's flown by, and been fabulous 90% of the time. Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate. We went to the only Vietnamese restaurant in town and had delicious food. At the end of the dinner we got fortune cookies which read....

His: You will a have happy adventure soon.

Mine: Accept the next proposition you hear.

Nuff said, happy anniversary Jason.

Fall Pictures!

Went out past Keno with our friends the Hewletts to get their Christmas tree. We can't have a real one because of my families allergies, but it was so fun to go out in the woods with them. Tiffany took our family picture, and I took advantage of the opportunity to take new pictures of the kids. Fall pictures are always my favorite, and somehow this year I missed the leaves in town so out to the woods we went.
Paxton-3

Parker -11 Payton-9

Phoebe-5

Halloween 2009

Halloween this year was a week long event. It started with the Main Steet Parade and carnival. Paxton the Pirate and Phoebe the Sailor had a blast. Even Parker (who is almost too cool for this holiday) had a good time.Payton was out in the woods with J collecting wood.
They had a ton of stuff going on including several businesses who were giving out candy to the hords of children. Parker stayed at the Jewelry store and handed out candy. This is Phoebe in the Parade with Margaret. These two just love each other to pieces. They have such a sweet friendship.
Then there was trick or treating at "Trick or Street" . Here is Lila the Lion at our church "Trunk or Treat". It was a really good night there too!
Here's Parker in his Ducks Uniform, which doubled as his costume for the second year in a row.
Payton and Eva used their dance receitle costumes to be clowns this year at the Roosevelt Carnival. So many Parties this year!

Phoebe's Pre-School

Theses are Phoebe's school pictures that my friend Camille did for the school. They are sooo cute!
Phoebe's Teacher and the class, cute kids, great teacher, awesome school! Love it!