First Trip to Disneyland

Our first full day in CA we went to Disney Land with Taylor and Page.  It was Elizabeth's first time and she was in total shock; she was in a little bit of a grumpy mood (time change?) and didn't have much of a reaction, other than a shocked stare.  It was decorated for Christmas, so the holly, trees and merriment made it even more magical.

We had an adventure before even reaching the park, when James had a big blow out in the parking garage.  Luckily I had some extra clothes with me and we were able to get him cleaned up.  He then went slept content in the baby carrier for most of the day- yay!

 

 

Once in the park, we started by going to the Disney Princess area.  There we saw Merida and Rupunzel (but didn't wait in line to talk to them) and we went into the Princess Castle and got to meet and talk to Mulan, Belle and Cinderella.  Elizabeth was in shock and told them all that it was her first time (she had a pin).  When Belle told her that Cinderella was around the corner she just turned and left; we had to bring her back for some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 Upon leaving the castle we saw that the Frozen show was about to start but we didn't have tickets, so we asked and got front row (I guess someone hadn't come?).  This was a hilarious show with two singing jesters acting out what happened in Frozen, the movie, with the help of Anna and Elsa.  It was fun to watch and Elizabeth's shocked face was worth it. (You could even see her quietly singing along with all the songs).

 

After lunch we decided to try some rides.  The girls first wanted to go on the Dumbo ride and fly in the elephants.  Taylor took them through the line, so that I could feed James and take pictures.  Once the ride started Elizabeth wouldn't let her lower it, so I didn't get very good pictures of the girls. We then went on the carousel and had fun riding the horses.

 

 

 

So much going on around them and they were interested in the pennies at the bottom of this pond.

 

 

 

 

 

Outside the carousel was Arthur's sword in the stone and the girls tried to pull it out.  I had previous told Elizabeth all about it and she recently watched the movie and she was determined to pull it out.  Even after the pictures, she kept trying and finally asked me to do it.  I think she really expected it to come out and finally told me that Dad just had to come and do it.  We then went on a boat ride that took us around to see miniature statues of all of the castles and scenes from the Disney movies.

 

 

 

 

 

Taylor then stood with James and I took the girls on the tea cups.  While in the line we talked about and decided which tea cup we wanted to be in but the people in front of us took it, which began a huge tantrum from Elizabeth.  She screamed and thrashed as we got on and waited for the ride to begin and the moment in started her screams of anger turned into screams of joy and excitement.  It was so hilarious to see and made Page and me laugh.  We all loved the ride and none of us got sick from the excessive spinning.

We saw a Mary Poppins performance on the street; with dancing and singing with a band and Bert. At one point they invited kids from the audience to join them in some dancing and Elizabeth went up.  She walked up to Mary Poppins, grabbed her hand and would not let go through the entire dance.  It was cute to watch her loving look and infatuation with Mary Poppins.

 

Elizabeth was really sad and crying so Taylor held her as she fell asleep.

 

It was then an hour and a half until the parade and Taylor said we should find a spot to sit.  I thought she was crazy but as we started walking up the route we found that it was already full.  We finally found a spot, standing room only (ugh our feet) and hunkered down to wait.  This was a perfect time for our grumpy girls to take naps; the only problem with napping was the waking up for the parade part. As the parade started we jostled them awake which resulted in a very grumpy Elizabeth, so grumpy that after watching one float she pouted and turned to bury her face in the back of the stroller.  She soon started watching again as the floats came.  It was the Christmas parade and it was amazing with a all different floats and it ended with Santa!  The coolest float was the princess float with all of the princesses and their princes dancing and singing.

Turned away in anger at having been woken up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We decided to leave after the parade due to extremely tired and grumpy kids.  As we started to leave they calmed down and we almost stayed longer but were glad that we left because of the 'getting to the car' melt downs.  Basically, we were all so exhausted but had so much fun!  It was an amazing day and I was so glad that I had Taylor there as our tour guide.

We ended the night with McDonalds and In-N-Out for dinner and then drove to Hemet to pick Michael up on our way back to Andrea's house.