Back from Disneyland Part VII

Just a few pictures from the mid day escape to the swimming pool and slide at our hotel.

Back from Disneyland Part VI

Just a few more pictures from our second day at Disneyland. All taken before we headed back to the hotel for a little break.

Back from Disneyland Part V

Second day in the park was an early entry day for us since we were staying at a Disney hotel. The lines were long to get into the park. I'd been dragging the kids around quickly the day before and all of us were tired and cranky so I decided to let them set the pace for today. Right through the doors everyone was rushing to be first in line to the rides but the kids spotted Mickey Mouse and we walked right up to him. Next we spotted Pluto and the kids loved watching him autograph the books on his nose.

We headed to fantasyland and the boys wanted to ride the carousel so we did that first. Zach spotted the Dumbo ride and wanted to ride that so we headed there next. After standing in line a few minutes Zach starts to freak out but we forced him to ride and he had fun. I let Zach pick next and he wanted to ride the tea cups. He loved that ride. I really wish I would have taken him a few times but I got so sick again on the ride. We rode a few more rides in fantasyland then headed to Mickey's toontown.

Nathan and Noah wanted to ride the Gadget Go Coaster so Don took them on that. I have a pretty cool picture of that I'll post later. After letting them tour toontown awhile we decided to take a break and head back to the hotel.

Back from Disneyland Part IV

Over at California Adventures there were a few rides for the kids. We started at It's a Bugs Life but Zach freaked out waiting for the show to begin so we headed for Toy Story Mania. In case you forgot my kids are huge toy story fans. They loved this Mr. Potato Head who is outside the toy story mania ride. He talks to you and I think the kids could have sat there for hours with him. After standing in line for about ten minutes the ride breaks down and they tell us they are not sure if it will be up and running again that day.

Noah wanted to ride the King Triton carousal so we got in line for it. All the kids really liked the ride. We finally broke down and let them buy a toy at the shop near the toy story mania ride. After that is was slow going for the boys. I wanted to stick around to watch the parade so we went to the plaza to just sit and kill a hour. While there we saw Minnie Mouse and the kids had fun meeting her. If you don't notice in the picture Noah is peeking over the top of Minnie Mouse.

I'm so glad we stuck around for the parade. It was short but it had so many of the kids favorite characters in it. The best part was Buzz pointing out to Noah who was trying his hardest to get his attention and Woody lasering with Zach.

After a very long day at parks we headed back to our hotel. We decided to try a place called Captain Kidds for dinner. That was a huge mistake as I was sick most of the next day.

Stay tuned for our second day in the parks.

Back from Disneyland Part III

The morning started early on the first day of going to the park. While the park did not open until 10am the kids were up and ready to go at 8 am. So we headed for downtown disney to kill some time. There is a fountain in downtown disney, last picture above, which the kids really liked. It would randomly shoot water out and it kept them entertained for hours. This is also the spot where the question "Are they triplets" was first asked in Disney. I'd say we were asked at least 1,000 times during our three days there.

As we entered the gates the kids spotted some characters and wanted to go see them. The only one we managed to meet at that time was Goofy. I am so happy I decided to ignore Don and bought the kids autograph books because they really loved having the books to get autographs. They had so much fun meting Goofy.

Off we went to find our first ride. I wanted to start them in Fantasyland but they spotted the Buzz Lightyear ride in Tomorrowland and wanted to ride that one first. There was no line for the ride we walked right on after dragging Zach through as he decided it was too scary. He ended up having loads of fun on the ride but that was the first of many times we had to drag Zach onto a ride. After getting off the ride it empties into a store filled with Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear toys. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to move the boys on. Once outside Zach spies Buzz Lightyear and took off to meet him. I have to say the boys are still talking about meeting Buzz Lightyear. They had so much fun meeting one of their favorite characters.

The next ride we did was Astro Orbitor. Zach would not even consider getting on the ride so I stayed with him while Don rode with Nathan and Noah. This turned out to be a favorite of the Nathan and Noah. The rode this ride at least 4 more times during our visit. We then hit the Finding Nemo submarine ride which was the longest wait in line we had the whole entire time. We stood in line for at least 30 minutes. Course Zach started to freak out again as we tried to load on the ride yet ended up enjoying the ride once on. Next stop was Autotopia. Zach and I went together and he had fun driving. Near the end Zach told me that he did not want to drive again, it was too hard and scary.

We stayed at Disneyland until about 2pm when we moved over to California Adventures. More to come later.

Back from Disneyland Part II

Sunday morning we get moving quickly to get out of Circus Circus. We are trucking along pretty nicely when Zachary decides he's done and no longer wants to go to Disneyland. He starts fussing pretty loudly and is really quite miserable. We stop in Baker California to let him run around. We get back on the road about thirty minutes later and he falls asleep somewhere past the California Inspection station. We sleeps all the way to our hotel.

After getting lost for a short while, long story and yes it does involve Don's stubbornest, we arrive at our hotel. We stayed in the Disney Paradise Pier hotel. We arrive about one hour before check in but I run in to see if we could check in early. We were told yes but then were told that no rooms would be available until 3. We unloaded the car and left the luggage with the bell hop. The kids went into the video room which was really cute. The wall was painted to look like the beach and they had a big sand castle which the television sat in. The hour went by quickly and up to our room we went. After checking out the room and getting our stuff settle we headed the the disney outlet store. I was not very impressed with what they had but we did manage to find a few little things to keep the boys excited until the next day.

Meanwhile Nathan is having a fit because we are not heading to Disneyland. I try explaining that we will be going the next day but he wants to go NOW. Hence the reason he is not in the above pictures. The pictures show the surfing Goofy that is in the lobby of our hotel.

Back to the hotel we go and we take the kids swimming. The pool was nothing special but the kids really liked the slide. The really liked that they could do the slide themselves. We swam for about one and a half hours.

Now we decide to go to downtown disney. We still had not made up our minds as to the character dinner we had booked. The more I thought about it the more I did not want to spend almost $150 for our family to eat there. We looked around the shops in downtown disney and looked at some of the restaurants. The waits and prices there were long and pricey. We ended up eating at the PCH Grill in our hotel. Not a cheap meal but not too pricey.

After dinner we headed back to our room for the night. Stay tuned tomorrow for our first day at Disneyland.

Back from Disneyland

Nathan and Noah with their cousin Iggy.

There is no way I can cover everything in one post so I'm breaking posts down by day. Follow along on our journey if you'd like.

Saturday morning we head to pick up the rental van. If you've ever seen the Seinfield episode when Jerry has a car reservation but is told they are all out of the car he reserved you'll find the humor in our situation. Although we reserved a minivan they were out when went to pick up the van so they upgraded us to an SUV. I was a little worried at first about getting our three huge car seats in the suv but it all worked out. Btw we did get the suv for the same price as the minivan. Plus we scored a military discount on top of the price.

We head for the house to load the suv. I then began to worry that the cost of fuel was going to kill us but overall the suv got really good gas mileage. Anyway we were on the road by 11:30 am, only 30 minutes later than our planned start time.

We made pretty good time before kids started to fuss. Nathan got car sick around Nephi. Zachary's shoe, which is a funny story, had started to fall apart the night before. Don swore it would be okay for the trip but I packed the back up pair just in case. When we stopped in Scipio the whole bottom of his shoe fell off. Score another victory for me.

We had lunch at a little mom and pop resturant in Fillmore. Sadly I did not catch the name but it was the best food we ate on the whole trip.

We pulled into Vegas aroun 6pm and drove to my sister's house to visit for awhile. My little nephew Iggy is a cute little thing. After we drove Andrew and Tami nuts with the kids being wild we headed to Circus Circus where we were spending the night. It was horrible. I booked a manor room and was scared the whole time. The rooms was awful and I did not sleep at all.

More to come later.