5 Magical Days!

Disneyland

Last week we spent FIVE whole days at Disneyland and California Adventure with Sydney and Sophie! It was a magical vacation and I think we had all sprouted mouse ears by the time it was over. It was sort of weird to wake up on Monday morning this week and realize we had to get back to the real world. Sydney and Sophie had the best time. We also had fun visiting some friends from BYU and their kids! It was a much needed break from the whole theme park thing. We appreciated all the family, including my Grandpa and Grandma and my Aunt and Uncle and cousins, that let us stay with them for parts of our vacation and for helping watch the kids! We had a wonderful vacation and made some lasting memories!

Now if you really care about what we did...you can keep reading...if not, I completely understand...because I guess this is sort of a vacation post!

The thing I love about Disneyland is...it isn't just another theme park. I felt like we were passing on a legacy to Sydney by taking her on all the old classic rides and remembering how much fun we (that's Mark and me) had when we were kids! My Dad used to go to Disneyland when he was little, and I went to Disneyland plenty of times growing up, so it was perfect to continue the tradition and take Sydney and Sophie there. Of course we had to do all the classic rides like the Peter Pan ride, Dumbo ride, the Haunted House, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, and Star Tours...to name a few! Sydney's most favorite ride of all was the Matterhorn which we went on at least 7-8 times. She loves roller coasters! The other thing we loved doing was taking the kids to all the really cool shows and parades! Sophie's favorite was probably the Playhouse Disney show. She was so excited about the bubbles and leaves that fell from the ceiling of the theater! It was over the top...in typical Disney style. Sophie did pretty good for being dragged to a very noisy place...mostly all day long. However, I don't think I would ever take any kids younger than 4 on a trip like this again. My Aunt came into the park with us on Thursday morning and took Sydney and Sophie to Fantasyland so Mark and I could go on the few rides that Sydney could not go on! This was lots of fun...although, we went on most everything by ourselves and took advantage of the single rider passes! Those are the best.

On Tuesday evening...we met up with our friends Jamie and Christian from BYU. They were super nice to invite us over for dinner at their house and just let us relax! Sydney and Sophie had tons of fun playing with their kids and just running/crawling all over. It is always fun to catch up with old friends and of course we wished they lived closer. In my perfect world, all my old friends from college would live in my neighborhood so we could all spend time together and let our kids play together! Wouldn't that be nice!

We managed to stop at Krispy Kreme for some doughnuts (they don't have any stores open by us anymore) and fit in a quick stop at the beach in Carlsbad and lunch at our very favorite fish'n'chips place...Harbor Fish Cafe!

All in all...it really was a magical time and we are looking forward to coming back in a few years!