Disneyland!

Oh the fun! Oh the joy! Oh, the walking! Disneyland was such fun!! Monday was kind of crowded, with it being a holiday and all. I was walking along headed to the Indiana Jones ride, and I saw a guy who looked like Kelly. Kelly and Kristi are our Disneyland friends. For the past couple of times we’ve gone to Disneyland, their family has met us there. Seriously! Of course, they go to Disneyland practically every other weekend, so I guess it’s not a huge sacrifice to meet us. I hadn’t told her about this trip, because I didn’t want to bother her and make them think they were obligated to meet us there. But there they were!

What are the odds of actually finding a friend there, on the crowded day, when there are two whole parks where we could be? Pretty cool. We chatted for a few minutes while my little ones whined and asked ‘aren’t we going on that RIDE?’, and it was fun to catch up!

By 5 we were all tired. We decided to go check out our lovely (and free!) room at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel. And Grand it is. The 8 of us (6 of us and my parents) took a few moments to lay down on the beds and couch and thought we might never get up. Now to decide what to do. Do we rest up and go back to the park? Do we call it a day? Do we go swimming? (The kids had already gone swimming both nights previous at the pool in Las Vegas and at the Residence Inn where we had all spent the night before. Even if it’s not really warm enough to swim, they are just so thrilled to be ABLE to swim in January, they’ll take anything.) Well, we decided to take a swim. Since two of the girls were staying with Grandma and Grandpa at the other hotel, that meant Ryan had to drive the grandparents back to their hotel, and have one of the girls run up and get swimsuits, then come back to our hotel. Thankfully, Ryan never complained about his job as chauffeur. He’s a great guy that way.

We braved the cold (when the sun goes down, it’s no longer the balmy 76 degrees we were so enjoying) to check out the fancy pools. Would you believe it? The fancy hotel’s fancy pools were NOT warm. And no hot tub. What?! The kids jumped in and had no problem, while the old farts (me and Ryan) took some convincing to get in. We ended up having fun swimming and playing in the cold water, but couldn’t last all that long. We still had to do something for dinner, and we were SO tired. We changed our clothes, John had a big melt down, and a time out, and then we finally got moving and ended up at a nearby restaurant for dinner. And by the time we dropped off the two girls at the Grandparents’ hotel, John was asleep in the back seat.

Day 2 at the parks dawned nice and early. We had our world of color fast passes, we had our plan, and we headed to California Adventure. It was just a short walk through the secret gate from our hotel. It was amazing. We walked over to Soaring and RAN through the line. There was NOBODY in the park!! We felt like the special people! After that we waited for the rest of the park to open so we could head with the rest of the crowd to Toy Story Mania. We weren’t at the front of the line, but it was only about a 10 minute wait. It was such a fun ride, we turned around and did it again!

The whole day was so nice! Hardly any lines, no crowds! The biggest crowd we encountered was in going to the Alladin show in that huge theater. If only we hadn’t all been dragging and tired! After we did every ride we wanted to in California Adventure, we ate, browsed the shops, then went back to our hotel to take a little rest and get our jackets before we came back to see the World of Color show.

While it is an amazing show, the fun was dampened a little by all the waiting and waiting. We were all sitting comfortably when they told us we’d all have to stand up to make room for more people. What the what? Don’t you people know we’ve been standing and walking all day and our feet canNOT stand for 60 more minutes? That’s when we started getting grumpy. We should have brought our camping chairs, or laid out a blanket and sprawled out on it like we do when we watch fireworks, instead of STANDING scrunched up with 70,000 of our closest friends.

Yes, the show was spectacular, but imagine how great it would be if you watched it sitting down?

Our third day at Disneyland we started out with no plan (big mistake). We let the kids chose the rides they really wanted to go on, which included some that we missed and some that they wanted to do again. John and I rode King Triton’s Merry Go Round many times. (I could only handle three times. Two consecutive. That is my merry go round limit. Any more and we may enter barfing territory). Ryan and kids rode California Screamin three times in a row, bringing their total up to 5.

Because the crowds were still down, we were able to squeeze in a few more rides after lunch, but by then it was getting cold. Of course, on the day that we didn’t wear our sweaters. By 5, we were getting down right cold, and had really had enough of the park. We had to do a little shopping, because Grandma wanted to buy the kids their birthday presents there at Disneyland, if there was something they wanted. Unfortunately, the things they wanted were spread out throughout the park. Megan wanted a Bolt dog, but not the ones with flowers in their mouths for valentines day. Natalie wanted a specific Grumpy shirt that we had seen in the shop by the Grizzly bear ride, John wanted a light saber, Jenna didn’t KNOW what she wanted. Grandma wanted a certain purse that she had seen in the gift shop at California Adventure. We split up, with Ryan taking the boys and Megan to the other hotel, then coming back for us 15 minutes later, after we had quickly finished our shopping.

So that was our trip wrap up. It was a fun trip! But before we go to Disneyland again, Ryan and I need to both lose 30 pounds so that all that walking and climbing and fastpassing doesn’t sap all our energy and we can keep up with the kids.

Now we’re back in Utah where a high of 37 seems balmy when the sun is shining. Oh, well. It was great to get out of the cold and wonderful to spend it with family.

Cole, by the way, was well taken care of. Yes, he did miss us, and was pretty lonely at home, but with dinner appointments every night and fun things to do all weekend, he didn’t score too badly. And now he won’t be struggling to get caught up like some other people I know. Can you say science fair?