The Great California Adventure Part I

Our family went on a super adventure to California, and what a blast we had!! (Sidenote: brace yourself for lots of pictures). The boys did awesome driving the whole way in one day. Other than Ethan throwing up just outside of Las Vegas, and a traffic jam from a bad accident between Baker and Barstow California that added another hour or hour and a half to our drive, we were able to get through the drive without any big problems.

In case you wanted to know... the McDonald's in St. George on St. George Blvd has these awesome saddle chairs!

Can I just say I love Getawaytoday. We made our reservations through them, and they are awesome! We paid an extra $30 to be able to change anything about our trip: hotel, dates, park tickets. We took full advantage of that by changing dates by a week, changing hotels, and then changing back, changing tickets and then also changing back. It was nice to know we could do it and not pay any fees. We stayed at Camelot Inn and Suites which we loved! We were right across the street so we didn't have to load in the car, and load onto a shuttle before getting there. We also had a suite that had a second room so we could sleep the boys in one room (that did not have an outside door), and us in the other room. And really, the price wasn't bad. A little more than if we had stayed a little farther away, but not that much, and it was nice to know if we needed to head to the hotel for a nap with a couple of the boys, we could. One night Devon headed home with everyone, except Jayden and I stayed to play for a little longer. It was nice to have that freedom.

Here we are on Main Street waiting for the rest of the park to open. Our first day in Disneyland!

Apparently Ethan never heard that Disneyland is the "happiest place on earth." He refused to smile for any pictures at first.

We saw on that there was a "Jedi Training" show, and knew our boys would probably love it. Little did we know how awesome it would be. They have some Jedi Masters come out at the beginning, and choose some of the kids to be padowans. We were lucky and both Dylan and Jayden got picked. Hooray, hooray! Some of the kids sitting by us had been to 2 or 3 shows, and hadn't gotten picked yet (they got picked this time too).

(Dylan is on the stage at the right with the blue light saber, and Jayden is in the front middle of this picture in the green t-shirt)

They took the kids up on the stage and put robes on them, and gave them training light sabers. Then they taught them some moves.

Then we hear Yoda's voice saying there is a disturbance in the force and...

...storm troopers come out on the stage.


Then the stage begins to lift up, smoke is flowing, music is playing...

... and (dun, dun, dun), there's Darth Vader! Awesome!

Ethan was not so sure about seeing this villan in real life.

And, next out came Darth Maul. They did a great job making him look so real!

Then the padowans got their chance at fighting these evil villains.

Dylan conquered Darth Maul.

And Jayden took on Darth Vader. I love this picture. Doesn't it look like David and Goliath?!

We weren't very good at getting pictures of Austin. He was a trooper. He was fairly happy, and slept well in the stroller when he needed his naps.

The classic Disneyland picture. I wish we got a whole family picture, but we never bothered getting someone to do all of us. I love this picture, because it is so Disneyland!

Girls want pictures with the princesses, boys want cool, tough guy pictures. They loved this armor.

I told the boys a brief version of the sword in the stone, and they had fun trying to pull the sword out.

Dumbo seems to be a favorite of any kid who visits Disneyland.

Ethan's favorite things definitely were the trains: The monorail and the steam train. This is him on the steam train. He loved it!

Jayden went on every single ride. He loved all of them, even though space mountain made him a little sick and scared, the hill on splash mountain made him nervous (see picture above), and he didn't so much like the ghosts in the haunted mansion. He loved Indiana Jones - it was his favorite.

Dylan tried everything except space mountain (he didn't want to, and I knew he wouldn't like it so I didn't push it). Of those big scary rides, his favorite was Splash Mountain. He did not like Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain Railroad, or Haunted Mansion - a few more years and I'm sure he'll like them better.

We also did the Pirates of the Carribbean, which the boys didn't hate, but it wasn't their favorite either. I love it though. That and Indiana Jones are probably my favorite rides.

Star Tours of course was a hit for both Dylan and Jayden. I don't even know how many times they did it with Dad. Ethan and I would do Buzz Lightyear while they were on it. I got pretty good at it too. I was a Level 4 whatever (I can't remember the name).

I saw this hat and had to take a picture with my iPhone, which is why the quality isn't so good.

And that is the end of this chapter. More to come...