Disneyland

On our way up to Anaheim we made a stop to see some of our friends who were also out visiting.  It was almost a mini-Brandmakers retreat.  James and Thea and Brent and Diana and all of their girls (they each have 3 daughters) were out staying at James' parents house in Encinitas.  The boys did some fishing (freezing!) from the beach early in the morning and then after it "warmed" up a bit we took the kids to play.  James' parents live one row of houses off the beach so we sat on their balcony and watched the waves and then walked down the steps to the beach-so convenient and fun! Sadly the pictures were on my phone which met the toilet and some of the pictures were lost :(.  After hanging out there and having the world's largest pizza ever-it was truly over 3 ft. in diameter- we headed up to Anaheim to get checked in to the hotel.  The next morning we headed to DISNEYLAND!!!

 Here are me and my girls on the shuttle.

There was a really fun "Mickey's Halloween Party Jamboree" with a small parade with the kids and their masks they had colored and then dancing-lots of dancing.  Alli of course was in HEAVEN with this especially since she was dancing with Mickey and Minnie! Ilene sadly had fallen asleep in the stroller and slept through the whole thing.

The first night was the big parade and we of course stayed to watch all of the princesses-it was amazing as expected.  All of the "floats" and costumes and music and dancing were so impressive!  The kids just kept pointing at everything totally mesmerized.

The next day we headed to California Adventure and we went into the Bug's Life one.  Alli still talks about the "bugs running across your bum" part ;).

Back to Disneyland one of the days and the kids watched the Jedi Training.  I was surprised my girls liked it as much as they did, but they watched and thankfully they weren't scared by Darth Vader!

We loved the Buzz Lightyear ride!

Another of Alli's favorites was Star Tours (also surprising to me!)

Trying on some funny Mickey ears!

The brave 3 on Splash Mountain-and got totally drenched! I think they were wet for hours after :(.   Cam had fallen asleep on my shoulder so I opted to wait and go later and then decided to pass for now.

Also part of Mickey's Jamboree-a petting zoo.  Somehow I didn't know Disneyland had a petting zoo and a 5 acre ranch, but they do-we learned something new this trip!

Ready to go in Soarin' California.

Alli must have gotten a little something from the winery by the looks of this picture ;).

We obviously were trading off kids.  In this pic Ryan had Scott and Alli and Cam with him in his seashell and I had Ilene, Sara, and Molly.

I LOVED seeing how excited my girls were to meet people-so darn cute!

Loving the "Explorer Camp" thing

Alli looks less than thrilled, but she enjoyed the ride-didn't need a repeat though :).

Poor Scotty took a fall at Seaworld so he had a banged up eye :(.  This was the first (and only) morning we actually went to Disneyland together, our family usually arrived a bit later...

We had to do Buzz again!

Toon Town-notice Cam climbing on top.  Luckily these were soft and meant for climbing-perfect for him!

Our fierce tigers on Dumbo's Circus Train

Ilene was truly in love with Cinderella-and all of the princesses.  It was like she was meeting her idol-so darling!!

Waiting in line for the Monsters Ride-our last day and it was zoo much busier than the first 2 days :(.  We were done with lines by this point!

One of the last things we did is go to the Aladdin play in California Adventure.  It was pretty amazing-really good vocals and dancing etc.  It was really entertaining!

It was such a fun trip, we were sad to be done with Disneyland! It was so magical-truly! Pretty hectic with so many little kids, but a lot of fun nonetheless!The kids were all troopers for the most part and did so well skipping naps and delaying naps and just being overly tired in general :).  The second night we had stayed a bit longer than everyone else and I decided I didn't want to go on the swings ride after all because I would have to wait another round (really not a big deal) and I was first in line and there were empty swings I could have gone on.  Anyway so I went to leave the ride, but the ride worker came up and asked why I was leaving so I nicely told him and he gave me a free pass to go to the front or close to the front of any line.  So we booked it-literally ran to go see the princess together in Disneyland, but they had left to get ready for the Halloween Party so they actually let us wait and meet them very first at the Halloween Party.  I was super impressed with the customer service aspect!