Disneyland

Before I found out I was pregnant, I started planning a little family trip to California for spring, but once again I was reminded how little control I have over my life.  So we rescheduled our trip instead to November and naive me thought it would be so much fun to celebrate my 35th birthday at Disneyland.  Sounds like a dream, right?  Especially since it just so worked out that two of Jarom's brothers' families and my brother and his family were also going to be in So Cal at the same time!  I did lots of research and had a fun and exciting week planned out for our little family.

Driving down, we caravaned with Nathan and Julie, and despite regular stops to feed Dallin, the drive was uneventful and pretty smooth.  We arrived in California in the early evening and got settled into our hotel after a quick visit to Grandma's house delivering a couple boxes of Dunford Donuts.  

The next morning, we piled into the bus and were on our way to Disneyland California Adventure.  I had never been to that park before, so I was pretty excited to experience something new. Our first stop was the Monster's Inc. ride, and I thought it was really charming, but Emilie didn't care for it at all.  We then stopped to get a little family picture taken, and then headed out to go on some more rides.  At least that was the plan, but after waiting in line to go on a ride in the Bug's Life area with nothing but screaming, it was clear that Emilie did not want anything to do with Disneyland.

  

We took the kids a couple years ago and had a wonderful experience, so I had great expectations that it would be even better with older kids, but after being in the park for only an hour, I had a hysterical Emilie and a very upset birthday girl (ME!).  So Jarom stayed with Isaac, and I took the rest of the kids back to the hotel.  The babies took a nap, and I stewed and fumed as my elaborate birthday plans blew up in my face.

I especially regretted not being able to see the whole park, so that evening after dinner, we were able to convince Emilie to not freak out long enough for us to go back so we could at least walk around and see the park, so we went back for a few hours.  We saw the last few minutes of the parade, and missed the light show, but Jarom was able to take Isaac and Audrey on a couple more rides and I was able to see lots of families having a much better time than ours.

 

The next day, I had a few ideas for activities to do, but I was still upset over the first day going so wrong, so I asked Jarom to decide what activity we would do - the zoo, tar pits, aquarium, beach, whatever.  He took the older kids swimming, then came back to the room and the kids watched tv and napped and relaxed.  I was hoping for a little more adventure, but everyone else enjoyed relaxing and taking it easy. 

Day three, Nathan and Julie let us use the 3rd day of their 3-day park hopper pass and we decided to give Disneyland one more try - this time to the Disneyland park.  We talked with Emilie and reminded her how much fun she had last time, and she seemed to have a better attitude.  Sure enough, we were able to go on a few more rides and were able to kind of salvage our Disney experience.

 The last full day was spent with Grandma and our California cousins.  We had a fun lunch at Don Jose's followed by lots of pictures at the park behind Grandma's house.  I vaguely remember meeting some of them years ago at Grandpa's funeral, but it was nice to reconnect build some friendships.  It was also wonderful for the kids to spend time with Grandma - it was Dallin and Audrey's first visit to California and first chance to meet their great grandma!