Thursday, August 21, 2008

So Much FUN!


Well we are finally back from our wonderful trip to California.  We had so much fun and came back with some really special memories.  I will share a few here in my blog, probably more then anyone really cares to hear.  But if you give me a chance I will gladly talk to you about it for hours.  Excitement started right away as our first stop was in Cottage Grove at the local McDonald's where we met Kyle's dad for breakfast on our way out of town.  The most amazing part of that experience was when I took Adams diaper off and he proceeded to urinate all over the floor, a lake could have been filled with this stuff.  I was horribly embarrassed but what can you do.  Of course it was right in front of the sink so every person that came in I had to warn not to wash their hands for fear of slipping in my kids pee.  Awesome!

This did seem to trigger something wonderful though because at our next stop Adam used the toilet for the first time EVER!  We were all totally shocked and my mom paid him $20.00.  I tried to convince her to pay me money for using the bathroom but no go.  Boo.  Seriously though we were so excited we had to take his picture in front of the place where he first did the deed!  Then to our amazement he went poo at the Taco Bell that we stopped at next.  Amazing.  We were so excited and hoping that meant we were done with diapers forever.  Sadly he is still working on getting this under control but at least we have a bit of succes
s under our belts.

We split the drive up into two days so arrived in Anaheim on Sunday the 10th.  The drive really went pretty well considering we had every seat in our van full and that my dad came really close to killing all of us after we got into the L.A. traffic.  We were all happy to be there and out of the car, but amazingly not because the kids were driving us crazy.  

On Sunday we went to California Adventure where we started with the Pixar Parade.  This was about the best thing we could have done for Adam as he is totally into the Pixar characters, especially Lightning McQueen. (sp?)  Well, who leads the parade, but the car hi
mself.  Adam watched in amazement, hand over mouth, the whole time.  He was so overwhelmed with seeing his special friends out there big as life, that he could not even hardly breath.  It was precious.  Alex and Sarah were so excited for him that they kept saying "Adam do you see who's coming, wow Adam look it's Nemo"....and so on and so on.  So sweet.  We hit a few rides and then the Electric Parade and called it a night.  A great intro to the week ahead.

On Monday we headed to the real park, Disneyland itself.  There we started with our standard ride, The Jungle Cruise.  Adam loved it, but was a little concerned about some of those creatures.  Sarah was very concerned when we got to the hippo's and our 
guide took out a gun.  I was surprised she didn't start crying, Adam jumped about a mile when the gun actually shot and made sound.  After that Alex got to go on his soon to be favorite ride, Pirates.  I think we rode that about 5 times over the week.  The rest of that day was pretty standard, lots of fun.  From here on I will just hit some of my favorite moments.

We attended the Minnie and Friends Character breakfast, I highly recommend this event. 
 We got so much great time with all the characters and found out that Adam had a major crush on Minnie.  At one point he snuggled up right against her and whispered into her ear for about 5 minutes.  She was so sweet to him and kept giggling and giving him kisses.  At one point he was kissing the top of her nose.  Sarah was terrified of Captain Hook and wouldn't even look at him, good girl.  And Alex pulled Kyle aside and said that "he saw mesh in 
Minnie's mouth so he was pretty sure these were all costumes, but don't tell Adam."  I thought it was amazing that he didn't want to ruin that magic for him.  The characters had so much time with us that they were playing with us.  We'd be trying to get a picture with one character and another one would jump in front of the camera.  Several of them also picked up our kids stuffed animals and posed for pictures with them.  The kids got a kick out of that.

Another top moment was stumbling upon Wendy and Peter Pan, Pinnochio and Hook back in a little corner in Fantasy Land.  Before we knew it we found ourselves involved in a wonderful game of charades with these guys.  Alex got up and froze on wha
t to do, so Wendy stepped in to help him.  It was so special to watch all these characters with my kids, reminded me of the old days at Disneyland.

I also loved watching my big 7 year old ride every single ride.  He got off a few not totally sure he liked them.  After California Screamin' I asked him what he thought and he said, "I don't know, it was pretty scary.  I'm serious mom, it was really scary."  He proceeded to turn around and ride it again 5 minutes later so I think he was o.k.

Sarah was of course the perfect princess.  Well not perfect, since she 
did cry a few times for unknown reasons with people I thought she would be so excited to see, like Ariel.  That's a story in itself, but I won't bore anyone with it now.  On the last day we put her in her Sleeping Beauty dress and headed to the Princess Fantasy Faire.  She was of course shy of the actual people trying to lead the faire but when the crowd cleared out she became a different girl.  In her mind she was at her very own ball and she twirled and danced and jumped across that floor so many times I lost count.  She was loving it and I wanted to cry watching her it was so sweet.  She also asserted her princess status by getting shoulder rides about any time she wanted them, especially from Grandpa.

We also had the great pleasure of going to the exact spot where Kyle proposed, Snow Whites wishing well right next to the castle. We had a family picture taken.  It was great because when we got there Alex said, "hey I know where we are, this is where dad asked you to marry him."  I couldn't believe he knew that, and people overheard him and started congratulating us.  It was really fun and great to share that place with our sweet kiddos.

I think that overall the part I liked the best was watching my kids with the characters.  Loving on them and hugging them and waving like crazy as they left to move on to the next adventure.  Hearing them talk to them like they were old friends.  Captain Jack Sparrow asked Alex and Adam what they did for a living and Adam told him he went to church.  
The pirate wasn't quite sure what to do with that info.  Alex about tripped over himself trying to get to Cinderella for an autograph, I guess he likes blondes.  I couldn't get Sarah to dance for me at the faire, but when Sleeping Beauty herself came up to our ribbon circle and asked the girls to spin, you can bet she was spinning, eyes star struck.

Second best was watching them just become a part of what was around them.  Adam found himself on the water front in New Orleans Square hunting pirates, Sarah couldn't help but sing and dance every time she heard a tune she liked, and Alex - even though he is sooooo old and sooooo mature - still couldn't help but whip out that pirate sword at any given moment to battle it out with his little brother.

We were so happy to get back home safe and sound, but I kid you not I could plan another trip right now.  I wish that I could write every special and amazing moment in this blog, but I really wouldn't know where to stop.  I hope you enjoy some of my favorite pictures from our super great Disney vacation.  Ask me anytime and I will gladly share every detail with you :)


*Scroll down the sidebar to look at all the pictures, I have not been able to insert more then a few of them directly into text yet.  We took well over 1000 pictures so it was amazing I got it down to the few you see here.  I'm sad I can't put them all on here.




2 comments:

girl said...

Oh!!! That was a wonderful post and I could hear about your adventures for HOURS!!! :) Thanks for sharing your favorite moments. I was smiling the entire time I was reading it! I can't wait to take our kids to Disneyland!! :)

Acker Family said...

I loved hearing about all the details! And I will for sure ask you about them when I see you! SO fun! I loved the peeing story at McD's! Priceless. I could just picture the whole trip because I know your family and how they are and it's fun that I felt I was there with you! Thanks for sharing! And I love the pictures-so sweet. Welcome Back!