Disneyland!

This was, by far, our favorite part of the whole trip.

We had a lot of fun seeing the beach, visiting with family, the road trip, grand canyon, Andy and Sireena's wedding.

But come on.  Lets be real.

This is Disneyland.  The happiest place on earth.

Boy were we happy.

:o)

We spent three days at Disneyland and California Adventure.

The first day we went to Disney and stayed from about 8am-7pm

The second day we went to California Adventure and stayed about the same amount of time.

The third day we made a list of all the things we missed the two days before from both parks and did all of them.  We stayed from 8am-12am!  It was our last day.  We decided to do it all the way.

At 10pm we were really second guessing our decision to stay as the kids were dozing off sitting and standing up. lol  So we did what any good parent would do.

We bought them sugar to wake them up.

HAHA

Dan and I had a deal on the first day.  I would hold Nora the entire time (unless I was on a ride) since he has back pain if he would take charge of the camera and get lots of pictures.

Well, I held up my end.

.......

He did ok for about the first hour of the first day.  Took some phone pictures the second day.  And when I reminded him on the third day that he hadn't gotten as many as I might have been inclined to get he made a valiant effort up until the battery in my camera died.

wah wah wah

Ohwell.  Such is life.  I'm grateful we got any pictures at all. :o)

 On the bus from our hotel to Disneyland the first day!  Look at that face!  Such anticipation!

 This was Nora's fate for the parks.  She didn't mind  one  bit

First thing we did.  A picture of Dan's girls in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.  How appropriate.

It is so hard to look at a boring camera when there is SO much excitement around you!!!

 In line for our very first ride which, ironically, scared two of them.  And no, Lilly was not one of them. 

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is not for the faint of heart....

 So far so good in the Nora department.

Thanks for the picture, Lauren! lol

 The sun was killer from about 2pm-6pm.  So we went to the Carnation cafe to have lunch and cool off!  Lilly and I changed a word search game into a letter search!

 Nice, Kayla.

 The Parade!  This might have been our favorite part of the day!  We still have the song running through our head sometimes! lol

We saw the Disney parade twice and the CA Adventure parade once.

They were standing in a prime location for the CA adventure parade!  Almost every parade member gave them all the girls high fives etc...

 This is an attractive view of Nora.

 We went to the Golden Horseshoe Revue and Dan got picked out for their little skit.

It was too funny.  The guy thought Dan was adorable sitting there sucking on his Mickey lollipop. haha
I just so happened to get a video of it.  It's at the bottom of this post if you want to watch. :o)

 Yep.  Nora's still here.

 Well, it looks like Lilly is putting her head in a trash can.  Hmm.  Nicely done, child.

This was our third day in the midst of that 2-6 hot sunny time of the day.  Can you tell?  We all look pretty disheveled and sweaty.

Ew.

 This was the ONLY roller coaster Lilly was tall enough for!  She loved it!

 Aaaannd.... I look ridiculous.  Apparently I get really excited for roller 

coasters geared for 35" people.....

 Riding "It's a Small World" which is basically a rite of passage.  I went looking for a birthday present for Lauren while they rode.

Bye bye mr Canon.

Hello phone cameras!
(these are in no particular order...)

The girls earned money the months leading up to our trip so they could spend it at Disneyland.  Lauren's final purchase was face painting.

Dan took Lauren and Kayla on a ride and I took Julia, Lilly, & Nora up to Tarzan's treehouse.

This is how most of the trip went.  Lauren was tall enough for all the rides, Kayla was tall enough for all but one (just about 1/2" too short) Julia could ride about 1/3 of the rides and Lilly and Nora were fairly limited.  So we split up the festivities.  It was a lot easier the second and third day when my mom and dad joined us!

Nora is quite opinionated...

Here is a poem on exhaustion:

Just kidding.  It wasn't a poem.  Just more pictures.

haha

We went to dinner with my brother and his (then) fiancé after Disneyland all day the first day and the girls just could NOT stay awake!  They fell asleep

in the car

while waiting for a table

at the table

in the car again

and then finally in bed

I felt SO bad for having to wake them up so many times!!!

Another shuttle ride!

The California Adventure Parade!

It's a blurry picture but this was SO funny!  The Monster's Inc. monster walked slowly up to the girls and when he was really close he jumped just slightly closer to them!  It scared the girls and they giggled so much!  We all got a kick out of that!

Dory got right in Lilly's and my face! haha

I've never uploaded video to my blog before.  So let me know if this does not work or if it is totally not videos below.  There should be three if I did this all right.  A very short one, one of a bit of the parade, and one of the Golden Horseshoe Revue skit.

update: I did indeed do it wrong the first time.  I think I fixed the problem.  They should work now.