Disneyland

June 10-14, 2012

After your husband does something incredible like graduate from medical school, you have to celebrate by doing something awesome, right? Right! So when the conversation about impending graduation and the subsequent celebrations came up last fall, we decided pretty quickly that Disneyland was where we wanted to go. When you have two fun girls at two great ages and a daddy who grew up going to Disneyland a lot, the decision was pretty obvious.

We recruited Brad's parents to come with us and tried to recruit the rest of his family to make it work too. However, with different things going on in the family, the trip ended up just including Brad's parents, his sister Richelle and her family, and us. It was really quite nice.

We rented a cute little house a mile from Disneyland. The girls went into hysterics when they discovered that the room they were sleeping in was decorated in a Disney Princess theme - complete with a closet full of dress-ups just their size. Can it get any better than that?!

We woke up super early Monday morning and walked the mile to Disneyland in hyper-speed (we were excited). Brad might have been more excited than the girls.

On the way we saw this:

made of legos!

And this:

also made of legos

And finally, this!

Day one was spent in Disneyland park. We felt pretty lucky to have Richelle and Bryce with us. They have Disneyland down to a science so we barely had to wait in line for anything. It was awesome. (Thanks Bryce!) Our day was packed full of fun rides, good food, and the magic you only find in Disneyland. We ended day one watching Fantasmic. Leah was fascinated by the show and Lainy loved that Jessie (from Toy Story) was in the finale. So fun!

Lainy's one and only time on Splash Mountain

Leah was pretty enthralled by Tinkerbell

It's a small world afterall... times 4

The walk back to the house seemed much, much longer than it had in the morning... All the kids fell asleep. The next morning we decided to drive and park :)

Day two we were in California Adventure. The new Ariel ride was a favorite with the girls (and me), and so were the classic Soaring over California and the Tower of Terror. Leah got pretty sick in the afternoon. Let's just say that we learned the Disneyland crew have a very efficient way of cleaning up puke. Poor girl. We ended day two by watching the World of Color show. It was amazing. Seriously - so good it brought tears to my eyes. Awesome!

Meeting Buzz cheered Leah up slightly

Waiting for World of Color

Day three was our last day in Disneyland. We hopped around to both parks to make sure we saw everything we wanted before leaving. The parade in Disneyland was a definite favorite! After we had exhausted ourselves on rides, we let the girls each choose a souvenir, snapped a picture in front of the castle, and watched the fireworks as our farewell to Disneyland. It was hard to leave.

Lainy and James transportation (Thanks for being a good sport, Mom!)

Our best photo on Splash Mountain

Waiting for the parade

Leah's face when she saw the princess float

Exhausted after three days of fun!

This is Lainy on the flight home:

We had a fabulous trip! The weather was near perfect, the parks weren't too busy, the kids were all really well-behaved, and Disneyland was still magical.

Thanks for a wonderful time Mom and Dad H., and Richelle, Bryce, James and Matthew! Let's do it again!