More Photos of Disneyland

Let's see what else... we stayed at the Holiday Inn & Suites Tues.-Thurs.. It was a fairly nice hotel. There was a decent breakfast. There was an outdoor pool that we swam in once. We left Monday right after work and drove to Vegas and stayed at Alfredo's cousin's house. Then we spent Tuesday morning with them and then headed to LA. The weather was beautiful! Beautiful! We needed our sweatshirts in the morning and evening, but the rest of the day it was perfect... not too hot and not too cool. I was not good about putting on sunscreen on any of us ( I usually am but not this trip...although I did carry it around with me the whole time) but none of us got burned at all. Seriously, perfect weather.







Oh, I forgot to mention in the last post. Gabby has suddenly become very camera shy. She does NOT want her picture taken at all. So sorry that in almost every photo she is hiding her face, looking away or grimacing. She did not want to cooperate with photo-taking whatsoever. But she did have fun. You just can't tell in many of the photos.

We all liked Storybook Land where you ride a boat and see little villages from many of the Disney stories. The girls especially liked the palace from Aladdin. Me, I'm weird. I was excited that we saw two very cool birds. ... A heron and an egret, I believe.






Okay, another thing that impressed me about Disneyland was that along with all the rides, there are also places for kids to just play and kind of take a break.






See...I told you Gabby loved the Soundsational Parade. Here she is from the back just waving and waving at everyone in the parade. The girls all had the biggest grins on their faces. Gabby was clapping and waving and smiling.

Disneyland...The Happiest Place on Earth

This is going to be mostly pictures so I'll apologize up front....we took hundreds and I'm going to post a lot. We spent 3 days at Disneyland....Weds., Thurs., and Friday (which we actually spent at California Adventure). We went during UEA weekend. Weds. wasn't too bad but Thursday was really busy. On Friday, Disneyland was crazy but we spent the day at California Adventure and it wasn't that busy. There were so many people there from Utah. I don't know if I've ever seen so many BYU shirts (except maybe at a football game way back when I went to college there). Only a couple of U of U shirts, but at least 100-200 BYU shirts or hats. Crazy. One other silly thing I want to say is that for as busy as it was, I only waited in line for a bathroom once...and it seems like women have to wait in line for the bathroom every where you go. So that was impressive! :)





Gabby absolutely loved, loved, loved Mickey's Soundsational Parade. She was waving and clapping and grinning from ear to ear. I loved World of Color...it amazes me the creativity of Disney and the music and everything just brought back such happy memories of favorite Disney movies when I was a kid. I think World of Color might have been my favorite part...and then as we were leaving World of Color on Friday night, there were fireworks over Disneyland. Just a spectacular way to end the trip. I can see why some people go there every year. (That won't be us...but I can understand it.)






Michelle liked all the "scary" rides... California Screamin' was her favorite. But she also loved Space Mountain and Splash Mountain and she liked Tower of Terror. Ella detested, HATED, and despised Tower of Terror. She didn't like Space Mountain either. But she loved the Matterhorn. And all of the girls loved Autotopia. I think we rode that 3 times. Pirates was closed for repairs and we never made it to Star Tours. Michelle and Ella also really liked the water/boat one at California Adventure...I can't remember it's name.










Gabby didn't like rides that were scary or dark... she hated the Matterhorn and she didn't even like calm rides if they got too dark. She loved Winnie-the-Pooh...that was her favorite...and the carousels... and The Little Mermaid (although she didn't like the part with Ursula). She loved all the rides in Bugsland, especially the bumper cars. I thought the movie was pretty cool there in Bugsland.

We tried the Dole pineapple smoothies and ice cream. I liked them...Alfredo and the girls thought they were just okay. Probably they'd been too hyped up by too many people and so they weren't as amazing as all the hype. We ate at a bbq place in Adventureland. Expensive, but yummy. Cornbread, baked beans and bbq chicken and ribs...all you could eat. We had beignets and pommes frites at Cafe Orleans. Yum. I'd like to figure out how to make those at home.

It really was a great trip...except when we "lost" Alfredo. He said he was going to the bathroom and didn't come back...After 20 minutes of sitting, we got in line for a ride right by where we'd been. A few minutes later, we saw him walking around the carousel where we'd been...it was dark and we yelled for him but he didn't hear us...Michelle tried to chase him but couldn't catch him so came back to me. Finally, we all left the line when we saw him come around the carousel again...but by the time we got out of the line and followed him, we couldn't find him at all. So we watched part of the parade and decided to head back to the hotel, hoping we would find him on the way. He'd gone to buy us hot chocolate and a muffin and that's why his bathroom trip had taken so long. It worked out in the end but caused all of us some frustration and worry.

Anyway, great trip. Great fun! Great memories.

Character Sightings

One of the things we did while at Disneyland was go to a Minnie and Friends Breakfast at the Plaza Hotel. It was so much fun for the kids... it was buffet style and the food was great. Plus, Minnie Mouse and many of her friends were there. They came around to each table, signing your books and taking photos with you. The girls loved it. Well the older two did. Gabby liked seeing them from afar, but she was NOT getting into pictures with them. Michelle and Ella especially liked Chip and Dale. They were funny and gave the girls a kiss on the forehead or cheek. Gabby was terrified of Captain Hook.

I don't know that I would do a breakfast or lunch like this on a future trip, but I am really glad we did this time. The girls really loved it. We met Minnie Mouse, Chip and Dale, Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, Captain Hook, and The Fairy Godmother.







We of course saw some other characters in the rest of the park. The girls were quite happy to see Woody and Jessie. They also saw a couple of Storm Troopers.




There was an area where you could meet some of the villains. We lined up a few minutes before they changed so we saw 3 and then got to meet two. We met Jafar and Cruella DeVille and Cruella lived up to her name! :) I guess she wasn't really cruel in person, but definitely snobby and self-centered. :)






The girls decided not to wait in the long line to see the princesses. But they did go through Mickey's house to meet Mickey. They also saw Pluto.




Michelle got to dance with Phineas and Ferb at California Adventure.




Last, but not least, we saw the tail end of Mickey performing hip hop at California Adventure and got our pictures taken with Hip Hop Mickey.