Whirlwind Trip to Disneyland

We just got a notice in the mail informing us that our Disneyland season passes expire the first week of June. We had been four times in one year, including one five day trip, so we thought we had had a pretty good year. Then our friends Brock and Cari called to let us know they were taking a trip down. We decided to follow them down and give our passes one last swipe. We drove down Thursday afternoon, went to Disneyland all day Friday, and came home Saturday morning. It was a super quick trip, but we had a blast. Here are some highlights.

We were among the first to get into the park, and we went straight to this ride. We probably waited in the Dumbo line for five minutes - we usually wait about 45 minutes for it. Kevin had to run back to hotel room, so Brock was nice enough to take Rebecca so that I could take William. Kevin got back just in time to get some pictures of us. I hope Brock doesn't mind being posted on my blog. (If you're reading this Cari, maybe just don't tell him that I put his picture up.) This is Rebecca's favorite ride, although she claims Small World is her favorite. She loves that she gets to drive whenever we go on it. This was William's first time on it, and he wasn't as thrilled about it as his sister is. He had his little hands gripped on my arms. We had to stay in the middle position the whole time because he would start to flip out whenever I tried to move the Dumbo up or down.

Since this was our fifth time here in the past year, and we've done almost everything there is to do at Disneyland, we decided to see some of the extras. This included meeting some more characters. Pluto was on Main Street right as we came in, so we stood in line to see him right before heading to Dumbo. Cari and I waited in line with the kids to see Tigger and Pooh while Kevin and Brock went on Splash Mountain. It was 101 degrees outside the day we went, which I believe was even hotter than it was in Las Vegas, so Splash Mountain was a must. We saw Belle on our way out of Disneyland as we were heading to California Adventure. Rebecca was dead asleep in the stroller when we saw her. We just had to wake her up because Belle is her absolute favorite. She hugged her for about five minutes straight.

Believe it or not, this was the first time we took Rebecca on the carousel. She loved it. When she saw the Ariel carousel in California Adventure, and she had to go on that one too.

We got stuck on Pirates of the Caribbean for about 30 minutes. William was already a little bit fussy when we got in the boat, so when the ride stopped, I thought, "Great. I hope this gets going soon before my kid starts screaming his head off." After a few minutes of quiet, I looked over to see him like this. He was out. Brock and Cari's cute little girl Bostyn also fell asleep on Cari.

We got back to the Hotel room pretty late, and Kevin and I stayed up even later to watch Training Day on Bravo. William got up at 6:30 am, and neither one of us was ready to get up with him, so Kevin put him on the floor to crawl around a bit. He destroyed the hotel room as we slept. Here he is pulling all of his wipes out of the container. Aren't we great parents?

I'm so glad we got to go one more time with our passes. Thanks for inviting us, Brock and Cari. Hopefully next time I'll get to see the parade!