Disneyland!

Such a magical, happy, exhausting place. Let's Go! We got Jared this Mickey shirt and he is proudly wearing his "1st Visit to Disneyland" button. 

Disneyland Main Street. 

Mark and I went through many possible itineraries before this trip. I read through so many websites to find helpful tips and "don't miss things." It was crazy but also quite helpful.  We didn't actually follow an itinerary but it was nice to have things in mind we knew we wanted to do.  One of course was to go to Fantasy Faire to meet the Princess's. So that is what we did first thing.  The Princess's don't appear until 8:00 so we walked through Sleeping Beauty's castle, took some pictures, played around Fantasy Faire, tired to pull the Sword out of the Stone and rode the carousel while we waited. Around 7:45 we lined up at Fantasy Faire and were 5th in line!  We had read stories of people waiting in line for 2 or more hours and were thrilled we only had to wait 15 minutes.  Jared and Lydia were so excited to meet them.  Ariel, Snow White and Cinderella were receiving visitors that morning. It was hard to get a good picture of Jared and Lydia because they kept jumping around and dancing with the Princesses.  It was really fun.  My Mom and sister Katie were with us when we met the Princess's and I think they really enjoyed watching Jared and Lydia.

This sword and the Tractors were his two favorites!

Princess's! Ariel was the most fun/in character of the three.  Cinderella seemed a little grumpy so I felt bad for her as it was the beginning of the day!  

After Fantasy Faire we headed over to Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbell and her friends.  I don't know what was going on but we had to wait forever and the line was not that long at all. There were maybe 10 families in front of us but we waited forever.  Yet as the pictures below show, it was worth it. Lydia was so so happy!  She loves Tinkerbell.  I think she enjoyed meeting her more than the Princess's! Silvermist was there too and she was really fun and did an excellent job being Silvermist.

After that we rode a few rides then met up with my family at It's a Small World.  My mom really wanted all of us to go on this ride together so we did.  Jared was really nervous to go on it.  He felt better when he got to sit by Lyra and Ryan shared his caramel popcorn with him.  He then admitted that is wasn't a scary ride at all. He may have even liked it but that may be the popcorn talking.

After that we headed back over to Fantasy Faire to see if we could watch the live "Tangled" show. We stopped by the Frozen area to see Olaf outside but didn't even bother with Elsa and Anna.  Such crazy lines! Jared and Lydia are not very familiar with Tangled but they really enjoyed the show and the story tellers were really fun.  We had heard that this show gets really busy and stays that way all day so we were glad we got to see it, with good seats too. That was our first morning in Disneyland. Then we headed back to the hotel for lunch and naps.

We got back to Disneyland just in time for their parade.  Mark got us some delicious ice cream and we sat down to wait. We met some really nice people while we were waiting and really enjoyed the parade. The parade was the one time we saw Minnie Mouse.  It was our best chance at seeing characters so it's a good thing we went. I even asked a worker at the information place when and where were the best places to meet characters and he said it was kind of hard now because they are all in designated spots with long lines. Oh well. We saw Captain Hook so Jared was happy and Lydia got to see Tinkerbell again and more Princess's.

 We did at least see Elsa and Ana.  Their float came by like 10 minutes before the parade started. I am glad we saw them this way instead of waiting in a 2+ hour line.

Captain Hook!

 Lydia loved it when the characters waved to her.  She is so cute she got lots of waves. 

After the parade we went over to Frontierland to go on Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Mark convinced Jared to go.  He was pretty hesitant. All the rides we had him go on were ones he previously said he wanted to go on after watching them. We really didn't make him go on them. And most often he loved them. Lydia and I waited near the ride and she had fun digging in the dirt and watching the fish, ducks and turtle in the pond nearby.  I had brought her Little People princess's along so she used then as shovels.  An older worker walked by and stopped to chat with us. He had fun watching Lydia and we both commented on how Disneyland is really great but so is dirt and rocks! After waiting for a very long time Jared and Mark came back and I went on the ride.  (good old child switch pass) I was really impressed Jared liked it as much as he did because, again dark tunnel and this one even had crazy fires and things. After that we ate some not very good Mexican food for dinner then met up with my family to go on the Jungle Cruise.  This was another ride my Mom wanted us all to go on.  The way they line people up for this ride is insane.  There are so many zig zags and you go up the stairs then back down them.  It was crazy.  We got on our boat and did our cruise and then right at the end we got stuck. A boat in front of us had broken down so we and to sit in the boat for about 10- 15 minutes.  I loss track of how many times our guide talked about how awkward it was to be waiting there.  It wasn't that bad.

After that we headed over to ToonTown with Susanna and Ryan and their girls. I was happy Jared and Lydia could play some more with their cousins.  It was a super long walk to ToonTown but we made it.  They had fun playing in the houses and running around.  There was a little too much running around as Jared and Lyra wandered off and got lost.  We split up and checked different houses and had Mark stand at the edge of the circle where he could be seen easily. I tired very hard to remain and appear calm but I felt like I wanted to cry and felt so sick! We had talked to Jared and Lydia so much about not running off.  Jared somehow got separated from Lyra and found Mark pretty quick but it took a little longer to find Lyra.  So awful.  Jared was so scared. We quickly left ToonTown via the monorail and called it a night.

Minnie's House

 Glad we found them!  

Friday afternoon my Mom asked if we wanted to do a pool party at the hotel. We asked Jared and Lydia if they wanted to stay and swim with their cousins or go back to Disneyland.  They opted to stay with their cousins and my Mom and sisters volunteered to watch Jared and Lydia so Mark and I head over to the park alone.  We used the single rider line and went on Indiana Jones, the Matterhorn and Splash Mountain in under 1.5 hours. I love the single rider line. Most often we stood in line less then 10 minutes and got off at the same time.  Indiana Jones took the longest. The waits were crazy in the normal line like 1.5 hours each. We were always just one "turn" off or even on the same one. Mark sat right in front of me on the Indiana Jones ride so we were still together. We were also just one log away from each other on Splash Mountain. Mark was in the front and I was in the back and he got soaked while I only had a few drops of water. I was so glad to be in the back. It was lots of fun and we appreciate our family watching Jared and Lydia who had a blast at the pool. 

The next time we were at Disneyland we took lots of pictures. Sadly (but not too sad) many of our photo pass pictures were not that much better then the ones they took with our camera. I am glad we got as many as we did of the four of us.  Friday night we went to the Tikki Room show and ate the famous Dole Whips.  The show was fun but Lydia was more fun.  She loved it all (except the statues singing). Everyone around us watched her more than the birds.  She was so cute dancing around.  After the TIkki Room we went out between the two parks and watched the fireworks. It was fun to see the castle al lit up.

Lyra, Lisa, Lydia, Jared

Before we left Saturday morning I went for a little run through Downtown Disney, just because its cool to say I went running at Disneyland even if it wasn't quite in the park. The funny thing was that there was actually an organized race for that morning.  A scrapbooking group who was holding conference/getaway at the Disneyland Resort had one planned. Luckily I got there before they started so the police officers let me run through.  

We loved Disneyland, especially Jared and Lydia. We were so tired but had a lot of fun!