Where's Waldo....I Mean Where's Julie?

The words to sum up Disneyland:  exhausting, fun, entertaining, exciting, magical, busy, crazy, memorable, and awesome!  We had an amazing time as a family.  It all started when the kids woke up on Saturday morning at 5 AM ready to go to Disneyland.  I am not kidding!  They were wide awake and talking excitedly about how it was time to leave.  We had no choice but to get up, get them ready and wait for the clock to change so the park would open.  It was a long three hours.  We ate at IHOP and took a shuttle to the main entrance where we waited in line for about a half hour just to enter the park.  That prepared us for waiting in lines the rest of the day.  We were hoping that our timing of this trip would prove to be a slower day at Disneyland.  Not the case!  It was very busy, but we figured out how to navigate through things as the day went on.  The fact that I like stripes proved to be very beneficial to our family.  Sounds odd, but let me explain.  I wore a striped fleece that could be seen for miles and I have no sense of direction whatsoever.  So every time we had to separate the family, Dan could always find me…even if I was in the wrong place, which happened often.  He told me it was like Finding Waldo (i.e. Finding Julie) because of my coat.  Saturday we were at the park for 12 hours and never went back to our hotel.  We did take one break to go offsite and eat at the Cheesecake Factory.  Then we headed back to the park for more.  We headed back home around 8:30 that night, just in time to hear the fireworks.  Chloe was passed out in the front pack, Sara asleep in the stroller and Mya asleep on Dan’s back.  We literally all fell into bed that night.  Sunday we repeated the same routine of eating at IHOP and getting to the park by 9am. This time we lasted until 4 because we still had the 3 hour drive home to the apartment.  But we made it successfully and once again all passed out in bed as soon as our head hit the pillows.  All in all we had a trip that has made lasting memories for all.  Below are some highlights from the trip and some pictures:

*The best part of watching Sara at Disneyland was hearing her talk about seeing Sleeping Booty.  It was so hard not to laugh each time she asked about her.

*Mya was tall enough to ride some roller coasters, which she has never been on before.  As the day went on, Dan kept talking about wanting to take Mya on Space Mountain.  When I was little, about her age, I was taken on Space Mountain in Florida.  And to this day I am afraid of roller coasters from that experience.  I was terrified for life.  So I was very nervous for Mya, but she went on it and did great.  She didn’t love it because it was dark, but she didn’t walk away scared.  In fact, she and I went on another roller coaster together (I decided to be brave for her).

*Constantly, we would hear Sara ask, “Where are we going?” Even right after we had just told her where we were going.  She just had to know ALL the time.

*As many of you know, there is a lot of music at Disneyland .  Chloe has taken up ‘gettin her groove on.’ She loves to dance.  Anytime there was music she would break out into a dance, moving all over the place with her hands going wild.  In fact, at the musical show Aladdin she belted out in song while Jasmine was singing.  The audience around us thought it was adorable…but pretty soon after that Chloe and I left the building because she was so loud.

*My favorite ride……the Monorail!

*Thank goodness for two things on a vacation like this:  the Ergo front pack and Keen shoes for the whole family (thank you Papa and Nana for the girls’ shoes).

*We went on a Little Mermaid ride and Sara was terrified of Ursela the sea witch.  But right after that ride we went to a Disney store and all she wanted to buy was the Ursela stuffed doll, which she cuddled and loved.  So funny!

*We discovered that one of Mya’s love languages is receiving gifts.  She became very focused on checking out each store that we passed so we could look at toys and maybe get something.  We had quite a few training opportunities to work on NOT pouting when you don’t get something you want.  She had to learn a tough lesson, but a good one.

*I think that Dan’s favorite thing from the trip was buying the girls light sabers (which I kept calling life savers).  These light up swords are a little foreign to our environment among the princess figurines at home.  Just this morning I heard him teaching them how to fight with their swords.  I suppose they do need to be exposed to some boy stuff every once in a while.

This is our hotel.  It was wonderful!

We had about a 10 minute walk to the main entrance to the park.  So good for the girls to get extra exercise!

Shooting guns on the Buzz Lightyear ride....so focused!

 Just some pretty flowers we saw along the way.

The feeding of the little birdies...really they are getting cotton candy from Daddy.

Sara was the only brave one to meet the princesses.  She was in awe!