Disneyland!

My wonderful Grandma Tadje gave us a good chunk of money for Christmas.  Jess and I decided to use it to take the family to DISNEYLAND! Once we decided that, we realized Jess' spring break was the next week....so...planning was quick.

The boys had no idea of our plans.  So two days before we left we gave the boys these envelopes.  Once they deciphered the outside, they opened them up and had to put puzzle pieces together that were in the shape of Mickey's head!

Rhett's

Luke's

Kade's 

Here's a mini look at how the vacation went in video form :)

(Jess bought me a new camera before we left, and to our surprise I had it on a setting that it takes a 2-4 second video before each shot!  I love seeing how real the kids are before the 'cheese' ha!)--BUT I can't get it to load any bigger then this--sorry!)

We had the greatest idea (cough...) of leaving early early in the morning so the kids would sleep in the car for the first few hours. But nope! That was a fail!  Turns out the boys weren't tired enough to actually sleep again.  So that happened.  Also I found out that if I take 2 Bonines to escape motion sickness, it makes me INSANELY tired and discombobulated.  I kept getting the kids what they needed and turning around to see Jess driving thinking, "He's so so so amazing! How is he even staying awake to drive when we're soooo tired!?" and then immediately closing my eyes until the next need arose.  When we stopped for lunch I was so off and just watched the kids and Jess laugh....so disconnected. HA!  It did a number on me and it wasn't until we pulled into our hotel that I started noticing that how I felt before WASN'T normal.  Ha!  Drugs.

We got to Cali early enough to go swimming. Now..it wasn't super warm...but it was way warmer then Utah so we all got in our suits and went for a swim!  

The hot tub was a favorite and the ping pong table.  Good times!  Jess headed back early to the room with our little blue lipped Max.

All showered up and ready for bed.  These boy LOVE hotels!

This trip was different then some.  I felt like there was a lot of ups and downs and good and bad and lessons and beautiful memories.  The only other real vacation that I can compare it too was when Jess and I took Kade and Luke to Disneyworld when they were 5 and 3.  Turns out vacations with 4 kids is a lot different then 2.

After a few rides--trains, bumper cars, flying circular things (ugh--I hate how anything that goes in a circle makes me sick), Grizzly River Run, and shows for the little kids (Disney Junior Live on Stage--Rhett LOVED it, plus they had snow falling from the ceiling for part of it and he was in complete aw!) we sat down for some lunch.  Now here's the great part about going to Disneyland in February: It's slow.  

While sitting there Officer Calvin Blue came up to give the boys tickets for 

:Inoffensive ingestion technique &

Arresting expression of emancipated exuberance--Adorable.  

Then Mickey came up behind the boys and played with them for a bit...so cute.  Then this cute 1920's lady came down the street with her little dog; a dog ALL of us totally believed to be real, up until the moment she left (turns out it was a puppet!).  A lot of cute attention on the boys.  I liked it. :)

Here's a sad story.  After being so so excited to go on the Cars Ride, we got to the start of the line only to find out Rhett was actually 39 1/2" NOT 40"-imagine this cute little boy sticking out his chest and standing so so tall... :(.  SO, He and I went to see Lightning McQueen and Mater (both of which are the REAL ones because they drive and talk and everything :) and get an ice cream cone.  It worked out okay in the end. boo.  The boys came back having loved it (it was a little fast for Luke’s liking) and Kade and I went back to ride it again. 
 

I always LOVE the 4D movies.  HOORAY for no lines, awesome shows where you think bugs are flying all around you and under your seat and smell stink bugs.  Perfect for these guys!

Finished off the day with more awesome rides, and Kade and I even went on The Tower of Terror! He's so brave.  We both got a little--queasy for a bit, but it was totally worth it. I love seeing my kids grow up and try new things!  We all finished off the night with a few more rides and we got one of those giant Turkey Legs that I’ve always wanted (incidentally they taste like ham—mmmm).  Rhett was on Jess’ shoulders and we all walked to get more food, stopping on the bridge to see the parade. Then on to get some Chinese food, and then walk home.  It was only 6:30 but the boys were exhausted.  We came home, cuddled on the fold out bed to watch some cartoons, and then went to bed.

Day 2 (fail day)
(Yup--I'm that mom who puts her kids in all the same color shirt--that happened--and I loved it--
Go 'those moms'!)

Saw some fun Characters got pictures; all of us went on a sweet boat ride called,

Storybook Land Canal Boats.  The wait was long—probably an hour, but we were playing games in line. Mostly the synonym/rhyming game (ex. Luke would say, ‘boom, mourn’ and we’d have to figure out POP CORN)  It’s a game that kept us busy the ENTIRE time at Disneyland.  It was fun and kept us all interacting and playing during boring times.  Also playing ‘I SPY’ with Rhett. J   It was here that I realized how many Disney Movies my kids HAVE NOT seen. Ha!  We have some work to do.

Jess, Luke and Kade left to go to Star Tours while me and the little guys found something to do in Fantasyland.  Rhett, Max and me started walking in on Snow White’s Scary Adventures but once inside the building to wait, it looked super spooky for Rhett and he said, 

“no….i don’t want to do this one” 

which was perfect timing cause we only had to excuse ourselves past 2 groups.  

So Mr. Toads Wild Ride it was!  Max was a little fussy in line again, but fine on the ride.  On the description it said it was a ‘joyful’ ride. It was kind of dark and Rhett didn’t LOVE it, but was okay with it.  Then we met the boys--who explained Star Tours as, "FREAKY" and I think Jess got kinda sick on that guy too) and we all started off for our 

Character Dining Experience!!!

So we were so excited for this right? Not to mention that we had to leave the park to get to our location and then got a little lost and the boys were hungry....and showed up to find.....no characters. They sat us and I asked when the Characters come out only to find out they only are there for breakfast...hmmmmm...mom fail #1 (I swear it didn't make that clear AT ALL on the website!)  But they were really nice about it and we didn't stay.  

So to make up for it we went to the Rainforest Cafe (fail #2)—we thought, the kids are hungry, and this looks cute—Well, it was a HUGE time sucker!  Like 2 hours to wait for a table, wait for our food, and wait for the bill….then we walked back to Disneyland with 3 hours of our day gone.  Sorry family—giant fail on moms part.  Lame.  What do you do right?  Anyway--we learned and played the rest of the day away.

Best part of this picture is there was NO wait!!! Woo woo! We got there right when Mickey did and so--boom...awesome opossum!

Buzz Lightyear ride was an easy favorite of the kids.

That night we got to meet with Jess' sister  Melodie and cousin Allison and their families for a delicious dinner of pizza and cupcakes :)  I'm so dumb I didn't take any pictures really.  But we did have fun trying to guess if Melodie would have a boy or a girl.  The drugstore test she took said boy...but the next day the blood work said girl. Who ya gonna trust ya know? :)

And wiped out.

Day 3
Amazing in every single way!
So by now we'd learned A LOT of lessons on how to do Disney.  So the night before I charted out our course like a cartographer and we were READY!  We got there and hit like a bazillion rides with NO lines before 2 hours were up!  Pirates of the Caribbean we ALL loved--so great.  Plus the kids all loved the drops and spooky parts (and really--no lines makes things so much better!)

"I'm not scared of anything!"

One of my favorite lines from the whole vacation happened here.  The whole family decided to hit the Haunted Mansion--based off Kara saying she thinks everyone has to do this to have the real Disney experience!  At the beginning when all the lights go out and everyone screams I was worried about Rhett—no need. We left the room and he chuckled a little and said confidently, “ha—I’m not scared of anything".  
He’s adorable.  
Luke said that this ride helped him get over his fear of scary dark places.
Adorable again! I love them!

Jess went on a Winnie the Pooh ride with these guys and saw all the characters (Jess loved Winnie the Pooh growing up.  I...well, I don't particularly like ANY of them so I'm glad he got to do this one :)

Meanwhile Kade and I got to go on the Indiana Jones ride which was AWESOME! 

We loved it so so much!  

After Kade loved it and wanted to go again.  I knew Jess would like it too so we went and switched with them.

We played at Tarzan's Tree house while they did it again.  Turns out my boys hadn't seen Tarzan-What?  So because of that awesome tree house, and how amazing the movie is, it's what Rhett asks for every time we get in the car now.

Mary Poppins!  That's adorable. So I remember a year ago trying to get my boys to watch Mary Poppins on one of our movie nights. NOPE! That didn't happen even a little bit. But--mom told the boys she was watching it about 2 months ago and their options were no movie, or watch this with grandma. So boom. We all watched it.  I was so surprised to hear Jess singing the songs and asked how he even knew this?  (I had never seen it before surprisingly.) and he gently reminded me that he has 4 sisters. HA!  There you have it.  Also--it's ADORABLE!  Love this show. We watched the seen with the, "I love to laugh" song twice cause it's hilarious!  Anyway--so when Luke and I saw Bert and Mary strolling down the road I was almost giddy.  Good times.

Kade and Jess went on some bigger rides while the and the rest went to Toon Town. We got some hot dogs with carrots and apples and milk (awesome kid meals) for lunch. To which all the kids mentioned that it was better then lunch at the fancy restaurant and so much faster! :)

If you ask Rhett what his favorite ride of all Disneyland was--he'll say the Go Gadget Coaster!  True to form, he wasn't scared of this either. He was giggling as we went on it and it honestly made my heart sing to hear that.  Love this kid!

This is the sign Luke made while we were getting ready in the morning on the inside of our cereal box. Awesome right?  So he totally got picked to do the Jedi Training!  YAY! Which made my whole vacation.  Cause Rhett loved all his rides, Kade loved all his rides, Max--well, Max wasn't always the happiest camper but he was okay and happy to be there mostly--But Luke doesn't really like rides--so the fact that he got picked to do this made us all so so so happy.

They picked the kids, gave them all cloaks and light sabers, taught them some rad saber moves 

and then pitted them against the big guys! Woo woo!

Graduation:

We celebrated with ice cream :)

We got Rhett and Max these AWESOME balloons that night--which WAS INCREDIBLE to watch. I hadn't seen Max that alive the entire vacation.  He was giddy and happy and jumping. 

Jess took Kade on one more big ride (so glad he does that--blah) while me and the others hit the parade. 

Our last ride of the night was the Jungle Cruise. The whole time waiting in line was so fun.  Singing songs and playing our game.  Then Jess had to jet Rhett out to get to a bathroom and barely made it back in time for us all to get on the ride together.  Rhett had this little explorer vest on that he got at the Rain Forest Cafe so he felt super legit exploring the jungle and seeing 'real' snakes.  Plus our lady was super funny and we all loved it.  It was such a nice relaxing pleasant and perfect way to end our vacation.  

Later that night, Jess took Rhett and Luke home, and Kade, who had run into a friend from school who had been there the whole week and wanting to meet up, went on a few 'line-less' rides with his friend.  (they had some fancy super magic passes from getting jilted on others during the day and shared them with Kade--they went on the Matterhorn a few times and he loved every single second of being able to do that--chatting all the way through)

Then we drove home the next day.  Here's Jess and Max. All the boys had to go to the bathroom, and Max felt left out, so Jess took him for a little walk... cute dad.

Happy Disneyland Adventuring!  Thanks Grandma!!

Favorite memories from our trip:

Cari: 

Playing ping pong with Kade at the pool

Holding an upset little Max until he fell asleep on my shoulder at the hotel

When I stopped cleaning up the hotel room, got in my p.j.'s and laid down on the bed to watch cartoons with the boys.

Buzz Lightyear with Rhett

Sharing the turkey leg with the fam, handing pieces of it up to Rhett on Jess' shoulder while watching the parade from the bridge.

Jungle cruise at night--hearing Max sing while waiting in line ("Let it Go", Child of God... :)

Indiana Jones with Kade: Kade chatting excitedly while using fast pass to cruise thru all the line--fun to see Kade so happy--and not feel the least bit sick on the ride.

Jedi Training!  So so happy Luke was picked!  While the man was picking who would come up, he passed over Luke and was going back the other way. I asked Luke how he felt and he said, 

"I'd be happy just to watch."

Luke's silent prayers when he was sick in the car and at lunch one day.

Rhett's giggle on the Gadget Coaster--and his giggle at the Haunted Mansion,

 "I'm not scared of anything!" -so giggly and happy.

Kade's excitement before and after going with his friend Seth and doing Matterhorn.  The two of us walking home and just laughing together.

Jess:

Sitting next to Luke during Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion--Luke wanting support

After a long day at Disneyland, rubbing Luke and Rhett's feet.  (loved seeing them relish the attention)

Rhett and Max getting balloons--30 minutes of bliss

Standing in line with Kade and playing word games--Kade beating him at dots.

Winnie the Pooh with Rhett, Max and Luke.  Rhett convinced it was the REAL Tigger inside.

Midway Mania with Rhett

Jungle Cruise with family--perfect ending.