Disneyland!

It's actually a law in California that if you are anywhere within 2 hours of Disneyland with little people (especially little people who have never been to Disneyland), than you must clear your schedule and make it happen.  Cali has some pretty crazy laws.  (Like the one that forces them to put up a sign at the entrance of Disneyland that says it (Disneyland) is known to cause birth defects, but only in the State of California.)

Anyway, we were within 2 hours, and we couldn't wait to get there!  I was up at 4:15 (yes, AM!) and we were on the road by 5.

This is actually the beginning of the day, not the end:

Sunrise over bug-splattered windshields.  It was beautiful driving through LA at that hour.

Trolley to the entrance.

...still kinda waking up from our 5 am nap.

Classic Disney photos.

We met our cousins at the gate.  We were so thankful for Jess for babysitting little Henry!  He had an awesome day with her, and it certainly freed us up to go crazy with this set.

I am always so amazed how kid-friendly  Disneyland is (although I'd never take a 2 year old!).  I know that should be a given, it being Disneyland, but all these little people were allowed on every ride in the whole park except one (which only excluded Ben and Jem).  You only have to be 40" tall, none of the rides go so fast that they have to put you in a headlock.  And none are so crazy that they leave all the kids screaming for their lives.  The retro rides, like Peter Pan and Small World, are plain creative!  It goes way above and beyond all the other parks that sell only thrills.  Plus, it's super-duper clean.  A mom's gotta love that.

So anyway, I'm a fan.  You should definitely go.

Everyone thinks maybe this time they are 'the one'!

Totally loving my two weeks with my favorite person!

Jemma wins for most enthusiastic face in the park.

When we got bored in line, we took lots of pictures of ourselves.

Most of the lines were 15 or 20 minutes, the longest we waited was 45.  We definitely made good time that day!

So happy to be in the sunshine!

Pirates!

Ironman!

Matterhorn!

Taking a little break for a much-needed yawn!

Peter Pan was definitely a fav again!

Jem and Ben and I took a time out so the bigger kids could check out Indiana Jones...we did the treehouse and ran to catch the parade, which was soooo good!

This thing growled at Jem and she totally freaked out :)

The parade!

K and I had the brilliant idea to pack in lunchables for lunch (savings: $50!)  So for dinner we went out, and the food was super-yummy and not stadium-expensive.

This kid is completely winding down.

Our last ride of the evening.  Sadly the fireworks were cancelled because of a breeze, so we kinda stumbled to the finish line.  But we did manage to get in to Space Mountain towards the end, where Sara and I scored the front seat.  It was seriously the best.ride.ever.

Ben was asleep before we left the parking lot.  No lie.

We pulled into Jessi's place at 1 am that night.  A 21-hour day of crazy-bliss.