Disneyland 2012

Our Disneyland trip this year was fun – and stressful – and full of great memories.  We surprised the girls on Sunday morning with the news that we were leaving a day early.  We played at the beach Sunday afternoon and headed to the hotel that evening.  We spent the next 4 days at Disneyland and on Friday we headed to Newport Beach to go on a whale watching tour.

Some highlights (according to me) of our trip:

-Whitney’s tooth falling out in the Expedition Sunday morning while she was eating a yogurt parfait from McDonalds….

-Going on Pirates of Caribbean and having Gracie practically sitting on my lap because the ride still scared her – she plugged her ears the whole time.  We went 2 more times and she finally unplugged her ears and decided it was fun and not scary

-Every time Olivia would start to throw a fit or have a meltdown I would tell her that we were going to go and get on the “beep beep bus” and head back to the hotel – she would instantly give me a strained smile so we could stay at Disneyland

-Olivia kept calling our hotel “the museum”

-Going on the carousel and pretending to race our horses.  We would give them a smack on their backside – the ride operator came over the intercom and asked that we “not hit the horses”.  I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed – I think Gracie was though.

-Going to all of the shows at Disneyland and California Adventure – the girls had such a great time and it gave us a chance to get off our feet.

-Taking Olivia on Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain & Big Thunder Mountain.  She was such a good sport with the bigger rides – she would just sit there slightly trembling and then when it was over she would say “Mom, I liked that ride!”

-Watching the girls faces while we were at the parade in Disneyland – they were priceless!  It was a great ending to our trip there.

-We all had waffle cones we were eating on the curb while we waited for the parade to start and Jeremy’s was dripping out the bottom – rolling down his shirt and onto his shorts.  Olivia fell asleep 3 times while she was eating hers.

-Going to Newport Beach to take a whale watching tour and not seeing a dang thing.  The water was really choppy because a storm was coming in and I think 3 of the 5 of us were two minutes away from barfing before the boat finally docked.

-Renting a surrey on Newport Beach for 2 hours.  Then actually pedaling and finding out that Jeremy’s legs wouldn’t fit under the steering wheel.  We looked like we were in a clown car…..we returned the surrey after 15 minutes.

This is such a mom thing to say, but my favorite parts of our trip were all of the things that happened between the rides.  Waiting in line, walking to the next ride, sitting on the shuttle, etc. – those were the times that memories were made for me and my family.  I hope the girls remember all of the fun parts of the trip and skip past the cranky, stressed out, fighting parts – because those parts definitely happened too.  But that is part of being a family – luckily for us the good times far outweigh the bad.