This past weekend we had our little annual fall Disneyland trip. It was so much fun as we always expect Disney will be.
A few months ago Eric put out a little competition at work and winner got to choose a little weekend family vacay. It had to be somewhere close Arizona, Nevada, Cali etc. And Nate Wathen won so we were super pumped to have him Erin and Beckam join us for the weekend since he chose Disneyland as his destination. I think that was a great work reward to give out to benefit the whole family since the family has to sacrifice having dad work long hours to win the contest its nice they could all enjoy this win. And when our friends the Burts heard we were going to be out there together and they had been looking for an excuse to go, they tagged along also. So fun to have so many kids together.
We flew out Thursday night and checked it at our fav Disney lodging The Grand Californian.
Friday morning we started with our tradition of breakfast at the Storytellers Cafe in our hotel. Great food, characters walking around and and Mickey shaped waffles. Awesome.
Ady and Max with Turk
The Wathens, this was Beckam's first Disney trip.
I love these next shots of Lucy meeting her first character.... in the bottom left photo doesn't it look like she is putting her hand out to shake hands and officially introduce herself?
She wasnt scared at all just wanted to suck on his hand...
After breakfast we headed into the park just as it opened. Hit all our first favorites, Pirates, Haunted mansion, Buzz, Peter Pan, Jungle Cruise and the list went on... hardly any lines since we went early. The around lunch time when things did start getting busy we headed back to downtown Disney for our favorite pizza at Napolini.
After lunch, we hit the pool at our hotel since the gorgeous 80- something degree weather was too tempting not to swim a bit.
That night we headed back into the park for dinner and to see World Of Colors, which is Disney's new light show. So amazing. We loved it. By the time it was over we got to see the tail end of the Disneyland fireworks and head back home since it was so late and our kids were passing out in their strollers.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early since our hotel has "magic mornings" and we can get into the park and hour earlier than the general public.
We got in our Disney gear and headed in.
We hit all our favorite again and some new ones and spent time in California Adventure.
That night we all got babysitters at the hotel so we could take Nate out for his celebratory dinner at the amazing Napa Rose, not a great kid restaurant. Then we hit the park for all the rides our kids don't meet the height restriction on. I had been collecting fast passes all day so we got to do Soarin, Space Mountain, Tower of Terror (twice, an poor Tiff got sick) and Indiana Jones. Not sure why we didn't take an photos of our date night but we had tons of fun.
And came home to all the kids sleeping peacefully.
Sunday morning we ate one last character breakfast, took some family photos in downtown Disney and headed off to the airport to go home.
We had an awesome trip! Thanks for coming Burts and Wathens!
Our kids at the airport with their souvenirs