Disneyland and California Adventure

After spending the night at Grandma's, we started finally started our vacation. But first we spent an hour and a half touring the metropolis of Hurricane. All of those last minute errands added up. One would think that our destination was Hurricane. Meanwhile to ease her boredom, Rachel prepared for Disneyland by pretending to ride on top of the Sequoia.

But we finally made it to the beach that night...

...and to Disneyland the next day. This was the first time we entered the park without a stroller. Last time both Camille and Rachel were in strollers. We didn't know what to do with all of our stuff. Some silly children thought that mom would carry it for them. Then they tried to get dad to carry items. All soon learned that less is more, and all you really need is a camera, a phone, and money.
When I was little I so wanted to live in a tree house just like this. I still think it would be fun.
Here we are on the Small World ride. This was Kevin's favorite ride!...when he was five. Look how much he seems to be enjoying it now.
Yes, Erin's enthusiasm is also unbounded.
Our new favorite ride was the Tour of Terror. This is a picture of a picture of us just before another drop. Rachel looked at me half way through and said, "I want to get off." "We will," I told her, "in just one minute." DROP!
The second time (we convinced Rachel that it really was fun), we planned on holding our fingers up and circling our eyes. Not all of us made it, but the guy behind us obviously heard us talk about it and joined in.
At first I thought the drop was more of an illusion. How in the world do they get that thing to drop so far and so fast and then catch it? But when I looked at my purse floating in free fall next to me, I was convinced that the drop was real.
We only had one long wait. Our neighbors were at Disneyland the same day, so the kids had friends to wait with in the Splash Mountain ride. Here Kevin models his friend's hat.
One of Krysta's favorite rides really is the Winnie the Pooh ride. Frumpalumps (or whatever they are) and Woozles, oh my!
Have you ever been on the Storybook Boats? Neither have we. This is a ride we have always skipped, but everything was closing for fireworks and this is one of the few still open. Besides, we had to do a few kid rides for Rachel. We would race by on our way to the "big" rides and she kept saying, "I want to go on that." Finally we did.
The ride turned out to be a tour of cute miniature castles, homes and gardens from various Disney stories. Ironically, of all the boats we rode-Jungle Cruise, Small World, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean-it was the Storybook boats that had the greatest risk of tipping over. The employees had us load in a certain order and really cautioned us not stand up because of the danger of capsizing. We even all had to stand up together at the end of the ride to keep the boat balanced. Really, the little kid ride is the most dangerous boat in Disneyland?

I had video from the World of Color show that we saw at the end of the day, but it didn't load properly. Someday I will get the hang of this video blogger thing. But if you'd like to see the entire show, follow this link to the YouTube video. It's incredible what Disney can create out of water, light, music and fire. Movie scenes were also projected onto a screen of water. This show was wonderful and worth the 40 minute wait in line just to get our fast pass tickets to come back at night.

Fifteen hours later we ended our day. How fun to have kids that can go all day long!