Our Disneyland fun

Our trip to California was great.  I would have liked a little more heat and a few less people, but other than that it was wonderful.  We had an awesome flight to CA (I'm so glad we could fly).  Liam did wonderful which was a huge relief since I had no idea how he would do on the plane AND he had a bit of a stuffy nose on Tues morning so I was worried his ears would hurt.  He didn't even blink and eye at the takeoff and then he fell asleep and slept the whole flight.  We were at our hotel and checked into our room by just after 10 am.  I was thinking it'd take us a lot longer than that so I looked at Jason and asked him what we were going to do all day.  We decided to walk across the street to pick up our tickets from Disneyland and Jason said we should see how much it would be to add a day to our pass and go to Disneyland that day.  Thankfully it was fairly inexpensive so that's what we did!  It was a fun day and much better than being bored at the hotel or trying to fill the day swimming or something like that.  I didn't take as many pictures as I usually do on this trip because I was busy having fun, but I did get some pictures to record our fun together.  This one is the second day right as we entered the park.  Liam would get excited to see the characters but he didn't want to be too close and he didn't want them to touch him.  This is the one and only picture of our whole family that was taken the entire trip.  Every other time someone was close enough to take one for us Liam was asleep or someone was missing because they were on a ride with another relative.  These pictures are unedited and I just noticed this one makes me look like I have horns.  ;)  Once I get around to editing these I'm hoping that I can do a head swap so Liam is looking in the same picture where Em's arm isn't covering her face, but since that will likely take awhile I will just share both with you.  This is where we learned for sure that Liam doesn't want to be touched by the characters.  As you can see Jason was holding him and the reason he's not looking in the second picture is because he's watching carefully to make sure Jesse doesn't try to put her hand on Jason's shoulder again because the first time she did it he totally freaked out. 

There were a few rides that the kids and I had never done before because last time they were closed.  The Haunted mansion was one we all enjoyed this time that we hadn't done before.  I convinced the twins to go on the tower of terror with me (I'd never been before).  As I looked over at them during the ride I really wished I could take a picture because neither of them liked it at all and I could totally see it in their faces.  The doors opened and the ride operator asked who wanted to go again because there was no line and everyone but my kids yelled "yea!" while my kids bolted for the door.  At least they tried it.  I didn't get any pictures of that one. 

Another one we tried out was the Finding Nemo submarine ride.  Although I think it's cool it sure wasn't worth the long wait that most people had to get on it.  We got in line early one day so we didn't have to wait TOO long, but most of the time the line was huge.  Here's a picture of Em and Liam checking out the sights.  I realized I don't have many pictures that show that we were there with Jason's brothers and sister.  By the second day with them Liam was getting real buddy buddy.  This is him sitting on Heather's lap at the Playhouse Disney show in California Adventure.  We are lucky to have all of Jason's siblings close by now.  It makes me wish more of my family was close. 

Em and Jason love the river rafting ride in CA Adventure.  I went on it a couple times with them, but it was too cold for me to want to go more.  They kept finding people to go with them.  They were soaked this day.  They also loved Splash mountain which I was more willing to go on since as long as you aren't in front you don't usually get too wet. 

Liam liked the monsters inc ride.  Here his is playing in the cab outside the ride while we waited to meet up with family.  The last day we split up in the morning so the boys could try to get onto Indiana Jones before there was too big of a line.  We were headed to Peter Pan before the line got to big, but we were too late.  Instead we went on about 6 other rides in Fantasy land in the time we would have waited in line for Peter pan.  This is Liam and I on the teacups.  He loved going on all the rides and as long as he wasn't too tired or hungry did pretty well waiting in line too.  There was only one time we were in line for too long and he lost it about half way through.  I stood in line with Liam to meet Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore.  He did fine as long as I held him and they didn't try to touch him.  When we first got to Pooh Liam touched his nose and I guess Pooh took that to mean he could touch back, but Liam wanted nothing to do with that.  I thought that was pretty funny.  Liam was being really cute in line for the haunted mansion on our last day.  Of course I couldn't really capture it well on film.  One of these days...

The last night Jason was beat and so was Liam so they went back to the hotel while we stayed and tried to go on a few more rides.  Thunder Mtn railroad was pretty cool in the dark.  I have to say I was a bit disappointed at how early the kids pooped out on me.  I totally could have stayed much later, but they were tired and I couldn't just send them back to the hotel in the dark and once I got to the hotel I didn't want to go back alone. 

So, there you have it, a not so short synopsis of our fun as a family.  I just love vacations!