Disneyland Part 1

I'm going to try and do our Disney trip in 3 parts for each day that we spent there.  I spent hours of time researching Disney and trying to do as much to prepare ahead of time as possible. We pre-purchased a lot of things to avoid premium prices in the park (Disney t-shirts, glow sticks at night, rain ponchos in case it rained, sunscreen, first-aid kit, etc). Lexi and I made our own version of an autograph book for characters to sign. It was like doing mini-scrapbook pages. She and I had a fun time with it. We tried to optimize our time as best as we could and wanted to avoid standing in lines. I invested in something called "Ride Max" that has you select what rides/attractions you want to do in a specific park during specific hours and then using mathematical formulas and what not's and it comes up with an itinerary for what order to go in, what times to pick up fast passes for the next rides, etc. If anything, it helped us to organize our days there a lot more. I did a huge shopping trip at Costco to buy lots of snacks, drinks, and lunch items. I even pre-packaged them in little baggies for each day. I had the kids outfits packed by day in ziplock bags. I made a run to the dollar store to buy some fun Disney travel items (coloring books, character crayons, stickers, etc). I did my best to have packing started early so it wasn't as much stress the night before like it usually is. Since I'm the one that usually packs for 5 people, this is no easy task! Finally, the day for us to leave arrived.

Thursday, March 3, I realized at the last minute that I needed to take treats in to Lexi's class for her birthday. I had to go volunteer with the Take Home Reading Books anyway, so it wasn't too much out of the way. I took all the kids home from school and we worked like mad to try and have the car all packed up and ready for when Marc got home from work. We almost had it all loaded. There was just a few last minute things, but I thought it we did pretty spectacular to be on the road by 4:00!

The trip down went pretty smoothly. The only thing that was scary was we didn't stop for gas in St. George, thinking there would be something right across the Arizona border.....well, as soon as we crossed into Arizona, the gas light came on and the only thing at the border was steep mountain canyons in construction where there was no shoulder to even pull off on if we ran into trouble! We were very nervous and just praying to ourselves that we could be safe and find a gas station quickly! Fortunately, everything worked out ok, but we definitely won't make that mistake again!

We weren't sure what to do about lodging that night. We didn't know how far we'd be able to make it with all the kids. We had overlooked a travel night when making the original reservations and that hotel was completely booked. Marc ended up booking the Ramada Inn in Anaheim, we pulled up about 2 am, Utah time. After a horrible night sleep, and little girls who were up by 6:00 and not wanting to go back to bed, we got ourselves up and going inside our nastly, dirty hotel room. Seriously, the shower was so gross and had bugs crawling around in it, I wasn't about to go in it without clothes/shoes on! I thought we were going to head to the park to be there when it opened, and apparently Marc decided to go for a run. He even thought I was going to go with him and that we were going to lock the kids in the hotel room. I was like, you're seriously thinking that we're going to leave our kids here in a hotel room alone??? Are you out of your mind?  He went running while I got the kids ready, made lunches and got the room packed up.

 I put a little lip gloss on Lexi. Isabel decided she needed make up too and grabbed my mascara wand to put "makeup" on herself too.

We managed to get to the parks right after they opened. We didn't have a definite plan for the morning so we kind of winged it a little bit. We decided to go to California Adventure first, get fast passes for World of Color and Cars and we saw Minnie and Daisy so hurried to get pictures/autographs.

 The boys were so funny about having their picture taken with Daisy, she had them kiss her hands and they nearly died of embarrassment! It was pretty funny.

 We left California Adventure and headed over to Disneyland. We got a birthday pin for Lexi, Happy 7th Birthday Lexi! And "First Visit" pins for the other 3 kids. We first headed to Toon Town. We rode the Giggle Coaster two times, Isabel would have happily ridden it about 10!

Next, we went to Mickey's house. We spent a little more time waiting to meet Mickey than we had anticipated, but it worked out fine.

 This was one of my favorite moments of the entire trip, Isabel had been looking forward to meeting Mickey Mouse and she didn't hesitate at all about going right up to him and giving him a big old hug!

 The whole family got a picture with Mickey. We were kicking ourselves because we left our Autograph book in the stroller, but oh well.

 Outside in Mickey's car.

 We were going to ride Roger Rabbit, but it was closed. We thought about "It's a Small World" but the line looked huge (or so we thought). We ended up taking a break in the shade, eating some snacks while Marc ran to get Fast Passes for the Toy Story blaster ride. When he came back, we rode the Story time boat ride.

Next. we rode Toy Story Blaster. We had lots of fun

 We walked over to California Adventure, we took a group shot with Stitch (pic of a pic, not best quality)

Some much needed down time:

 We re-energized with some drinks and snacks.

 These big old plastic chairs were a lot more comfortable than you would think!

On our way to ride the Radiator Springs Ride, we ran into Lightning McQueen:

 We used our Fast Passes for Radiator Springs. Because Isabel wouldn't go, I went with the 3 big kids and we got a rider swap ticket to come back and ride again

 So excited!

The ride was amazing! The scenery was really cool.

 In the end it, it was a high-speed race against another car. We all loved it!

 That was awesome!

 Isabel got to go on several rides in Bugs Land with Daddy while we were gone. We found them on the bumper cars.

 We went back to the hotel after that. It took about 1 minute for Isabel to completely pass out in the stroller. We were able to roll her all the way into the hotel room at home.

We forced all the kids to take naps. I tried desperately to take one, but couldn't fall asleep. We felt bad waking everyone up, but we wanted to get back to the park so Lexi could watch the "Frozen Sing-A-Long" for her birthday. I had the times mixed up and we sprinted the mile back to the park racing to be there at 4, and it turns out that's just when we needed to arrive to wait for decent seats for the 5:00 show. Lexi loved the sing-a-long! She was belting out the songs as loud as she could and was so happy to see Anna and Elsa. A little disappointed that she didn't get to go meet them though. 

 After "Frozen" we went to go have dinner. I was feeling really lousy at this point. Super queasy and no appetite. Marc and the boys took care of getting all the dinner while I found a table and waited with the girls. We ate at the Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta. We shared 3 large pasta dishes, though, it was mostly Tyler and Marc who ate it.

 After eating, we sang loudly to Lexi and let her open up a few presents. She got cards with cash from her grandparents and her "Lexi book" from us. We had also given her the Elsa dress she was wearing, and she got some Cinderella play figurines when we got back to the hotel.

 Our original plan was to ride lots of the smaller rides at California Adventure and stay for the World of Color show. However, we modified plans a bit when I was feeling so yucky and we were all pretty tired from traveling and a full day at the park already. Marc decided to use the rider swap and take Lexi on a Night Ride on Radiator Springs. I took the boys and Isabel on Mater's Jamboree tractor ride then we went back to the hotel.

Cars Land was so cool looking at night! 

A good ending for a first day!