Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Fall Recap: California Adventures

Over the summer Dallas and I planned a week long trip to Disneyland and California Adventures with my older brother, Erik, and his family.  We figured that the end of October would be the perfect time to go since there aren't many crowds and we could celebrate my nephews birthday.  Word spread through my family and before long my parents and my oldest brother, Bryan, and his family also wanted to join us.  I spent the next four months so excited for October to role around.

Little did I know that I would be right in the middle of my first trimester of pregnancy...
 Erik and Heather never told their kids that Bryan and Heather's family were joining us in southern California (Yes, both of my sister-in-laws are named Heather.)  When we arrived at the parks, Bryan and Heather's family were hiding behind one of the signs.  Right as all the cousins were walking past, they jumped out and surprised them.  The look on Lincoln, Rulon, and Ellis' faces as they saw their cousins was priceless!  Will and Sadie couldn't have cared less, though.
We decided to spend our first day at Disney's California Adventures.  I know this may surprise a lot of you, but out of all the times I've been to the Disneyland parks, this was only my second time going with children and the first time going with children I am related to.  It was such a different and sweet experience.
 We spent a good portion of the day at the Bug's Life section of the park where the rides are focused on younger kids.  It was fine by me, since I was not allowed to go on several different rides being pregnant.  Dallas was quite the enforcer of this rule and wouldn't let me go on any of my favorites...therefore I became the designated photographer.  I did get to ride the caterpillar with my little Will.  He was pretty apprehensive about the whole thing, which made for some great snuggles.
 The thing I loved most about our adventurous day was watching Grandma and Grandpa act like little school kids on all of the rides.  Grandpa even joined the guys going on California Screaming and Tower of Terror.  I'm pretty sure he won't be doing that again!
 The Adams family took over the entire Zephyr ride.  The grandkids LOVED having the whole rocket ship to the family.  I love the above pictures.  I know I'm totally biased, but I have some VERY cute nieces and nephews!
 For lunch, all of the girls had a special reservation to eat at Ariel's Grotto.  We all got our own crowns and were able to meet each of the princesses as was ate.  Ellis was so excited to meet Belle since she was wearing her favorite 'Belle' dress and Sadie was in awe of Snow White, her Halloween costume.  Each of the princesses were so sweet and got pictures with all the girls.  We had a lot of fun being total girls, giggling, singing, dancing, the works.  While the boys were having their own male bonding elsewhere.
 Crazy faces and giving kisses...pretty much sums up our family!
Everyone's favorite ride was the Grizzly Bear Rapids by far.  There was no line so the kids wanted to ride it over and over and over...  They were a bunch of drown rats by the time everyone was finished.
 I absolutely adore my parents.I know that they hate it when I post about them, but I just have to say that they are seriously the most amazing parents.  As you can tell from the picture below, they bring laughter and love to everyone around them.  I'm sure I can say for all my brothers, that we love and appreciate our parents and feel so unbelievably blessed to be their children.
Here's the whole gang, all 16 of us, taking a quick break in between rides.

Next post...DISNEYLAND!!

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