Oh baby, we had the best rest of our vacation! We've never taken the kids to Disneyland, so this was super exciting for all of us that we could go. We had the best time.
We slept in Monday morning and slowly got ourselves going and headed down to California, leaving at probably 11AM. Arrived in Anaheim at 3:15 and checked into the hotel, then changed into swim clothes and headed towards the beach. Well, first we grabbed some In-N-Out and then we went to the beach! We ate, played in the water a bit, and then watched the sunset over the ocean. It was beautiful.
This is us riding the tram into the park the first day. So much excitement!
Chloe and I moseyed about doing some of the kid rides while Bill and the older kids did the Incredicoaster. We found this cute picture spot.
Genevieve and Chloe switched their ears for this picture.
Waited to see the cars on this ride, but they weren't as cool as we thought. Got a cute picture though.
Day two we went to Disneyland. We showed up at 8am when the park opens and didn't get back to the car until 11:45. We walked ten miles! The kids had the time of their lives. It was so fun. I love Disneyland. There are just so many fun things to do there. None of the kids had ever been, though we teased Spencer that this was his second trip since the last time Bill and I went was when I was so newly pregnant with Spencer that I didn't know yet.
Spencer picked Star Wars ears. They were pretty cool.
The Guardians of the Galaxy ride. We didn't tell the kids what it would be like. Their faces make me laugh so hard! Chloe is wondering when the heck it's going to be over. Aaron too. Genevieve is questioning her life decisions. Spencer was super proud that he didn't scream once. He likes so deadpan here.
Much more love for the Incredicoaster. They went on this a couple times.
This one makes me laugh. Aaron was sitting next to Bill but he's only barely tall enough for this ride, and between that and his dark hair, you can't see him at all. Genevieve nearly lost her glasses on this ride. They fell off during the loop d loop but she was able to grab them. She held onto them really tight the rest of the two days!
Gotta snap a shot with Mickey!
Riding the train around the park when we were hot and tired.
Astroblasters.
Apparently none of the kids are destined to be the king/queen of England.
We rode the carousel.
The bobsled ride at the Matterhorn.
Spencer being goofy in line.
Space Mountain. I love how Aaron's eyes are squeezed shut.
Splash Mountain! Chloe was too scared to go on this one, so she and I did some other fun rides while Bill and the others did this one.
This is us waiting to go in the Tiki Hut. It's such a weird presentation, lol. But an Ashman favorite, so we made sure to take the kids and they loved it.
Inside one of the Star Wars rides, the Millennium Falcon one. We rode this one twice too because it was so fun.
The Star Wars area was so cool.
Teacups! Bill took the kids for quite the ride. Chloe didn't want to go so fast, so she and I went together slower.
Chloe wasn't that great a driver on Autopia, lololol. She made me take over and right at the end our car died and someone had to come restart it. Quite the adventure!
This is what Chloe does when she's mad about something. It's so hilarious and cute. I don't know what was bugging her just here, but I snapped a photo to remember.
I don't even know where this was, but just a cute picture of the girls.
One of the rides Chloe went on when she didn't want to go on a roller coaster with the bigs.
Late night shot as we were heading back to the van.
We didn't get a reservation at the hotel for Wednesday night. Figured we weren't quite sure what we wanted to do after our Disney days, and thought we could get a better price further from the park. What that evolved into was we'd just head back to Las Vegas to Bill's dad's condo and not pay for a hotel. That went well for approximately one hour, lol. The kids went right to sleep in the van and slept the night through, but Bill and I struggled and struggled to stay awake. 15-hour day at Disneyland and walking ten miles wasn't conducive to staying up late. We got an hour or two away from Anaheim and stopped at a rest stop near Baker, CA to sleep for a few hours. It wasn't too cold, but not that warm either, so I definitely didn't get great sleep, but after a few hours we were able to finish the drive to Las Vegas and crash at Doug's place. Genevieve woke up once to go to the bathroom but the other kids actually didn't even know we had stopped to sleep because they slept all the night through in the car. I was totally amazed by that. So they played on their tablets for a couple hours while Bill and I snoozed some more and then we got back on the road and headed home. Expected to get back to SLC by about 6pm. Ran into an hour and 40 minute traffic jam outside of Mesquite instead and didn't get home until 9PM. That was crazy! But we had all of Friday plus the weekend to have our vacation from our vacation, which was glorious. It's back to work and school tomorrow and I'm feeling just fine about that, which is amazing.
This was seriously the best week. We've not had a chance to go on many family vacations over the years. This was a particularly great one. It's really nice to be at a place in life where we can do more family vacations. We probably won't be going to Disney again anytime soon, but wow, what a great memory.
