Vacations

We’ve finally come to the end of our Disney trip.  The final day.  Am I the only one out there that’s sad that this series of Disney posts is coming to a close?

Don’t answer that.  You know you find looking at other people’s vacation photos riveting.

Our last full day started with the kids watching Disney shows while the grown-ups got ready:

Caroline decided she had had enough of the matching shirts and chose to be a princess instead:

She got into her princess dress and said, “Now I want my picture taken with Mickey and Minnie.”  I started trying to explain to her that it’s hard to just run into Mickey and Minnie, and we might not see them together, so don’t be sad, blah, blah, blah.  Then I saw she had gathered the house’s stuffed Mickey and Minnie and was already posing for her picture:

Well, fulfilling that picture desire was easier than I expected.

The Toy Story ride had been closed all week.  It finally opened on Friday so we went there first thing:

We went to A Bug’s Land again to do some rides we missed and we ran into Flik:

Brooke had fun trying to dodge the water:

Caroline got comfortable while we waited for the Muppet Show to start:

Spencer and Dallas also took a load off:

Our rave reviews convinced the rest of my family to see the Aladdin show so we all met up for that:

Just as enjoyable the second time around (even if this viewing included a wiggly baby behind me kicking my chair, raking his fingers through my hair, and playing peek-a-boo).

Dallas noticed there was a place where we could learn to draw Disney characters.  I wasn’t too interested in this, but then he mentioned that he thought Brooke would really enjoy it.  Duh.  Of course she would!  They taught us how to draw Jack Skellington.  Brooke was so careful to listen to the instructions and do just what the teacher said to do.

Her picture:

The top picture of Jack is what she drew during the class.  The bottom picture is what she did the second we got back to Belle’s Castle that evening.  She spent a lot of time drawing more pictures all around the border of her paper.  I wish we had gone to more of those classes because Brooke really did like it.

Caroline was nervous to draw her picture and kept telling me over and over again before it started that I would need to help her.  She also did a great job listening and following directions and this is the Jack Skellington she drew all by herself.  I think it’s cute:

Spencer wasn’t so great at following directions (obviously lacking the listening and fine motor skills necessary for such a task), but he was still happy drawing on a paper with Dallas.  His picture is on the left and Dallas’s is on the right (in case you couldn’t tell):

And here’s mine:

We found Chip ‘n Dale’s Treehouse:

Finally, the show we had all been waiting for…Mickey and the Magical Map!  We tried to see this show several times earlier, but our plans were always foiled.  Since it was our last day, we made it a point to see it.  I thought it was kind of a dorky show and my brother thought the moral of the story was to disobey so it really wasn’t worth our great efforts to see it.  We did get a cute picture out of it, though:

Brooke and Caroline gathered up the streamers after the show was over and took very good care of their little souvenirs:

It was Friday so the parks were open later than they had been the rest of the week.  Since it was our last day we decided to stay as late as the kids’ behavior allowed.  On our other Disney days, the parks closed at 8:00 which I actually loved because we were able to get home at a somewhat decent hour and put the kids to bed before they really got delirious from lack of sleep.

What we didn’t realize was that on Friday Disneyland actually gets MORE crowded as the day goes on.  By 8:30 the lines were so much longer than they had been all week and our kids were starting to go crazy so we were happy to call it a day and head home on the monorail:

The next morning, Spencer had to get in his last moments of playing with the cars before we left:

We said our good-byes:

And then Dallas and I cried because we didn’t want this vacation to ever end:

Here we are driving home.  Coincidentally my sister and I realized we were within one mile of each other the whole way home from Beaver to Salt Lake:

Have I sufficiently conveyed how much fun we had on our trip?  It was so fun.  Dallas and I just couldn’t stop talking about how much fun we were having.  When we were driving home we were remarking that we couldn’t think of a single thing that would have made the trip better.  It was just that perfect.  Our kids were so well-behaved.  The house we stayed at was so nice.  My whole family was there.  We had matching shirts.  There were cheese balls.  The things we did each day were so enjoyable.  We loved every second of our trip.  It was just so fun.  Take my word for it.

And if you don’t believe me, well, I have about seven blog posts you can reread proving my point.

Our next Disneyland day started off with a bang (according to Brooke) before we ever even made it into the theme park.  Brooke spotted roller skating My Little Ponies in the Build-A-Bear store.  Now she thinks her life will never be complete until she owns at least one:

The Dumbo ride was first on the docket:

Then Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride:

Of course we had to have another stomach-churning experience in the teacups:

We went to Tomorrowland and saw the robot ASIMO do tricks:

My favorite memory of Tomorrowland was when Caroline had to go to the bathroom.  The men/women signs outside the restrooms had aliens on them.  Caroline ran up to the women’s side, paused, studied the sign, ran over to the men’s side, looked at that sign, ran once more over to the women’s side, then came up to me with a confused look and said,  “Mom, I can’t tell which side is for girls.”

We tried out the Buzz ride:

They had a Halloween Carnival.  It had some goats we could pet:

Games:

And lots of characters just waiting for us to meet them:

The girls started working on a coloring project:

…And were surprised to be joined by Donald!

You can see Donald’s drawing on Brooke’s paper:

Here’s Caroline’s cute picture:

Then we visited Toontown:

It was almost time for Mickey’s Soundsational Parade so we decided to stay for that.  We killed time inside this little theater watching some of the first Mickey cartoons that were created:

Then it was parade time.  The kids loved seeing each of the floats.  Spencer was especially fun to watch.  Each time he saw a new float he’d say with great excitement, “Look!  There’s another one comin’!”

We had to get a shot of the Genie since he was the kids’ favorite character after the Aladdin show:

A new vacation day meant new matching shirts to wear:

Disneyland!

We had to get a shot in front of the castle even if it meant squinting in the full sunlight:

Brooke tried her hand at driving on the Autopia ride.  She took her job as driver very seriously:

I got a picture of Dallas, Caroline, and…Spencer’s arm:

We met up with Jacob’s family and did the Storybook boat ride:

That’s a cute teacup:

Do you prefer your tea with one child or three?

Laurie and her kids on the It’s a Small World boat:

And again:

We were waiting to ride the train and I just couldn’t help myself.  Those cute, blue matching shirts were begging me to take picture after picture:

Laurie suggested we all ride the ferry over to Tom Sayer’s Island and let the kids explore the island.  I had no idea what this was, but it ended up being great fun for the kids.  There were dark, scary caves to explore:

And pirate’s treasure!

This pirate treasure kept the kids entertained for the longest time, and I don’t really understand why it was so fun for them, but whatever!

We hopped over to California Adventure for the World of Color show:

But first we hit up the Monsters, Inc. ride again.  Spencer was excited:

Caroline is looking a little tired as we wait for the World of Color show to start:

Spencer is looking surprisingly perky considering the hour:

Dallas and Brooke are looking pretty cute:

I was calling Jacob to try to coordinate a meet-up: 

It worked!  They found us:

The World of Color was a fun show.  They had fountains that sprayed water up and they projected scenes from movies on the water and made the fountains look like they were different colors.

Then the kids promptly fell asleep on our walk back to our car.  Perfect!

First things first – when I wrote the beach post we apparently hadn’t downloaded all of our pictures, and I missed including these two:

They were too cute not to post, correct?

Now, onto our new items of business.  After vacationing for five days we finally went to Disneyland!  The kids were super excited.

You know, before we left for Disneyland I read a lot of guides by people who live and breathe all things Disney so I could learn tips and tricks.  Not a single guide recommended that you get matching t-shirts for everyone in the group.  I know.  I was shocked, too.  After spending four days in Disneyland (and each day wearing a matching shirt!) I can say with complete confidence that neglecting this bit of advice is a serious oversight that I cannot allow.

There were so many benefits to the matching shirts.

#1 – Matching shirts automatically make every family picture cuter (even when not a single child is looking at the camera!).

#2 – You can keep track of your kids so much easier.  Really, it’s amazing how much easier it was to find kids wearing bright salmon-colored shirts.  Plus, if a child started wandering away, other people knew they belonged to you and would help steer the kid back in the right direction.

#3 – Say you all want to get on the tram.  Other people know you’re part of a group, and they kindly try to make room to help everyone fit.

#4 – Along those same lines, say you’re waiting in line to get into the park (or a ride).  Sometimes random people would find themselves in line right in the middle of us all and we would let them ahead of us or they would automatically slide over and let our stragglers join us.  Very nice of them.

#5 – Ride attendants could easily see we were a group and could plan the seating assignments accordingly.

#6 – Now we have a fun souvenir of our vacation!

Really, the only drawback is matching shirts are kind of inherently dorky so just get over caring about that and you’ll be fine.  Oh, and people make comments, but that just adds to the fun.  Try it out on your next Disney trip.  There’s (probably) no way you’ll regret it!

We actually went to California Adventure this day.  We waited in line to get into the park:

Then we did more waiting once we were inside because the rides hadn’t quite opened yet:

Good time to get a picture with Walt and Mickey:

And by the fake road:

Our first ride was the Monsters, Inc. ride:

Dallas was pretty excited:

This ride was a favorite, and we rode it several times while we were there.

Then Dallas took the girls on the Tower of Terror while I rode baby rides with Spencer:

Did you catch what I just said?  Dallas took the girls on Tower of Terror.  Girls, plural, which includes Caroline.  That ride was way scarier than I remember it being and I couldn’t believe I allowed my little Caroline to ride it!

We loved Cars Land:

We spent a lot of time trying to earn our Wilderness Explorer badges.  We found Doug:

We went to a ceremony where the kids got their badges.  Here they are participating in the ceremony:

Later, when we got bored in line the girls would often resort to doing their little wilderness explorer routine which I thought was adorable.

Russell was there to give out the awards:

The Little Mermaid ride was a family favorite.  We probably rode this thing at least a dozen times during our trip:

So much to look at:

We met Woody and he was so cute with the kids:

A Disney miracle!  Spencer fell asleep!

We noticed the walkways were getting sectioned off so we asked a cast member what was going on.

Cast Member:  “We’re getting ready for the Pixar Parade.”

Dallas:  “What’s that?”

Cast Member (likely wondering how to state the obvious without making us feel dumb):  “Well, um…it’s a parade…with…um…Pixar characters.”

Is that funny?  Maybe you had to be there.

Since we were there we stayed there and watched the parade.  We loved it.

It started getting a little chilly.  Dallas suggested that we go to the indoor Aladdin show.  It was advertised as “A Musical Spectacular.”  I thought it would be a little twenty minute thing where the characters would sing the Aladdin songs.  It ended up being almost an hour-long performance of an abbreviated version of Aladdin.  Had we known it was going to be an hour we probably wouldn’t have done it because I wouldn’t have thought the kids would sit that long.  Luckily, we didn’t know and it ended up being one of our favorite things that we did.  The show was so fun.  The scenery and props were amazing.  The kids giggled throughout the entire thing and thought the genie was so funny.  They laughed about things he said for the rest of the trip.

Really, if you’re going to Disney, see this show (in your matching t-shirts, of course).

After the Aladdin show it was really getting chilly and the park was close to closing, so we decided to go back to Belle’s Castle and rest up in anticipation for our next day of fun.

Our next day of vacation started with a delicious French toast breakfast courtesy of my dad:

The little boys busied themselves by playing with all the cars and trucks that Sarah brought:

We decided to have a beach day so we all headed off to Newport beach.

Me:  “Did we get everything?”

Dallas (looking at our overcrowded stroller): “Um, yeah.  I think we got more than everything.”

All the grandkids in one picture (plus Abe and Sarah):

The beach was so fun.  The weather was perfect.  The kids loved wading in the water and playing in the sand:

My parents playing smash ball:

Caroline was a little nervous about the water and Spencer was a little nervous to go out alone, so he’d run up to her, grab her hand, and together they would brave the salty blue:

Brooke made some new friends:

Not pictured is the older man who sat by himself building a sand castle that Brooke also befriended (and even whispered secrets to before the afternoon had ended).

Newland was in heaven:

Abe and Ben tried out some boogie boards:

Dallas also had a turn:

Please admire our farmer’s tans:

Group shots:

Dallas drew a crowd by saying he had found bugs in the sand.  We all ran over to see.  He would scoop up handfuls of sand, let water run over it, and these little critters would run all around burrowing in the sand.  It was disgusting.  Then Dallas said, “You can feel them tickle your feet when you’re standing on the sand.”  Turns out I was standing right on a pile of them, and he was right.  I could feel them scurrying all around.  Eww!  We were all a little scarred by the discovery of these ocean friends.

I took video of everyone freaking out about the bugs.  If you look closely you can see the shiny little creatures running back into the sand.  (Make the video full screen to see better.)  Does anyone know what these things are?  I tried to google it and couldn’t find anything that looked right.

Everyone else left, but we were still having such a fun time that we stayed and played nearly the whole day.  We finally decided to leave because we feared bad sunburns if we stayed any longer.

We came back to the house and had showers.  Everyone except Sarah’s family had already headed to Disneyland for the rest of the day.  Sarah’s family and I stayed at the house and ate, cleaned, and chatted while the kids played.

This next picture documents the beginning of our cheese ball crisis.  My Dad bought that huge container of cheese balls and the kids (with the help of the adults) had no trouble finishing it off in no time.  We may or may not have gone straight to the store to get two more containers to last the rest of the week.

One of our best ideas this trip was to bring our crockpots.  Theoretically, my mom, sister, and I would each take a day and crockpot a meal.  That way, in the evening when we were done with our fun, we could come home to a nice meal that didn’t cost a fortune.  In reality, my mom and Sarah were the ones who did most of the cooking since I ended up staying out late almost every night playing.  Way to go Sarah and my Mom (and Dad)!  We really loved coming home to delicious dinners!

This evening we had Sarah’s barbecue chicken salad:

The kids were playing so well together we hesitated to check on them and ruin the magic:

My girls were dying for another swim day so we fired up the hot tub that evening:

And this marks the end of our relaxing vacation days…