The most magical place on Earth

Last year my Dad said he wanted us to plan our next family vacation and we decided on California and Disneyland.  Our girls were so excited for this because they have never been to Disneyland and I was hoping we would get to take them before they got "too old" for it.  They did jobs all summer and saved up their money, Emma had $100 and Chloe $30 hahaha

Ethan went on his 1st plane ride and he did awesome!  Aaron made the long drive with the girls all by himself in one day, but I wasn't even going to attempt that road trip with Ethan, Id rather pay to fly.  

  My dad got four condos for the family to share and they were so nice and big, so much better then staying at a hotel.  

 Here is mine and Aaron's room.

 The main room, I think this place was bigger then our apartment haha

 And the girls were excited that their bed came out of the wall.

The resort had a swimming pool, hot tub, playground basketball and tennis courts and the beach was right in our backyard in walking distance.

My kids are lucky to have such a loving and fun Grandpa who got up early each morning knocking on each condo and saying "Cousin raid!"  He'd gather them all up and take them down to the pool to play or to do red rover on the lawn.  

 Here he comes!

Aaron and Brian just happened to dress matchy matchy and they looked like pool boys hahaha

So much fun to go on a family trip with all the cousins!

One of my favorite parts of the trip was walking out to the end of the pier and eating at Ruby's Diner.  It was so cool to look out and be surrounded by the ocean while you were eating.  

All the grandkids with Papa Steve and Grandma Ruthie

Ethan was such a trooper the whole trip.  I was worried about he would do but he was so good!

We took a trip out to Seal beach which was so cool seeing all seals that close and lounging on the beach.

The girls loved searching and collecting sea shells

Ethan got to show off his first speedo, so cute!

Emma was in heaven at the beach.  She loved running out and chasing the waves.  She would have stayed out there all day if I had let her.

And then we finally got to go to California Adventure.  While all the men ran over to get fast passes for the new ride Cars, us girls took all the kids to Toy Story.  I haven't been to California Adventure or Disneyland since I was little so this was all new to me.  This was one of Chloe's favorite rides.

I loved this picture because it showed the girls cute t-shirts they picked out for this trip.

 Aaron took the girls on The Hollywood Tower of Terror and Chloe wasn't a huge fan but Emma liked it so she went on it again with me except I didn't like it and was freaking out the whole time that I freaked Emma out and she was shaking the whole time, way to go Mom!

 It was a good thing the guys got fast passes for Cars.  They went really fast and we didnt get to go till the afternoon and I felt bad for all the people who were waiting in line for 2 hours.  It was an awesome ride!

 Emma didn't care too much for the characters but luckily Chloe was still excited to see them and get pictures with them.  It made me sad Emma was already 'too old' for it, that's part of the magic of it.  But I got to live it through Chloe,  the two of us ran around the park looking for characters to get our pictures with while Emma and Aaron went on rides Chloe was too small for.  And we got lucky and found quite a few of the characters.

 As we were waiting in line to get our picture with goofy, Chloe asked me if they were real and I said yep and she said 'Well then why are they not blinking?'  I just laughed and told her that they are cartoon characters and don't need to blink. :)

Chloe picked two red flowers for Chip and Dale as we were waiting in line and she was so cute when she gave them to them and they held them in their hands for the pictures.

Our second day at the beach I didn't forget my swimsuit this time and had a blast riding the waves with the board my brother in law let me borrow. Once you got past how freezing the water was it was a lot of fun!

I love his cute chubby lil legs!

His 1st trip to ocean  :)

And then we finally got to go to Disneyland!  

 While Aaron ran to get fast passes for Splash Mountain the girls and I ran and were first in line to meet the princesses.  I didn't care if they're too old for it now, they were going to meet the princesses!

Aaron and Emma :)

Ethan was so good the whole time, it went so much better then I thought it was going to.  He even went on some rides, Monsters Inc, Winnie the Poo,  Nemo Submarine Voyage, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion.  Everywhere we went we got comments on how cute Ethan was and how smiley he is.  Some people were telling me I needed to get him in the Gerber photo contests.  One of the lines we were in for 30 minutes we had this chinese couple behind us and they weren't speaking any English but they kept taking pictures of Ethan and cooing with him, it was really cute!

 The new fairy Periwinkle.

We finished off the day with the parade which was really cool but by that time Ethan was so overwhelmed with all the noise and sights he had enough!  I was surprised it took him this long to have a melt down. 

I had to snap this picture of us at the end of the day as were walking to our car to show just how much crap we had to haul around with us, Aaron was like a pack mule.  

It was such a fun memorable trip, it was worth all the hassle.