Day 5, California: DISNEYLAND!!!

Originally the plan was to be in the gates of Disneyland as they opened at 8:00am. After being in Cali for 4 VERY full days, we had 2 VERY cranky boys that changed that plan a bit. :-P They both fell asleep about 9:00 the night before Disneyland and slept a little over 11 hours!!! That's a first! Never in all their lives have either of the boys slept that long! Jude woke up first at 8:15 & then Joel followed about 20 mins later.

{{Still a little foggy, watching Disney channel}}

Our hotel stay included breakfast so we took advantage of that (mainly to help from spending a small fortune on amusement park food). With happy full bellies, we packed up the suitcases and headed to DISNEYLAND!!

{{Packed up! Headed out!}}

Jon and I were pretty worried the crank wasn't going to wear off after a couple fairly huge meltdowns on the way to the park and thought we may be in for a horribly long day! We couldn't turn around now...could we?! We had been promising this day for so long! With high hopes we could turn frowns upside down, we pressed on!

As soon as we parked & headed towards the entrance, the boys were instantly SO excited!! Thank you, Jesus!! Let the adventure begin...

{{Heading inside!}}

Our first Disney star sighting was Pluto! He was RIGHT inside the gate! Couldn't miss him...and boy J&J didn't!! Haha!

Jude: "Look mommy! Pluto!"

Joel: "Look mommy! Fluto!"

{{Waiting in line to see PLUTO}}

{{First Family Shot}}

It was about the time we got in line to take a pic with Pluto that I realized I had forgotten the boy's autograph books in the car! Doh!! I had tried so hard to cover every base and be prepared for the trip w/o spending a bazillion dollars inside the park...all to forget the autograph books?! Boo! I made the boys shirts...I bought them Mickey Mouse stuffed animals, ball caps & their autograph books on Amazon ahead of time... *sigh* How could I forget the books?! As it turns out, it really wasn't a big deal at all. The boys could care less about autographs & were less than interested in anything more than playing with their Disney friends! They can just color on the Mickey  "notepads" at restaurants or something later I suppose, lol.
 

We made our way thru the entire park!

{{Jude and Jon mapping out our day}}

 

{{"It's a small World"}}

 

{{CAROUSEL}}

 

{{DUMBO}}

 

 

 {{TEA CUPS}}

{{WOAH!!!}}

{{Riding the train around the park}}

{{Jungle Tour Boat Ride in Adventureland}}

 

{{Visiting Mickey in Toontown }}

I cannot get over the star struck faces the boys had!! PRECIOUS!!

{{Driving Mickey's car}}

Atleast half of my photos look like this...

I love J&J's backsides too... They were so into everything, it was sometimes hard to capture their faces!!😍

 

One of my favorite areas was The Hundred Acre Woods. They had a cute ride & we got to see Tigger, Eeyore & Winnie The Pooh all in one place!! Joel LOVED hugging on Winnie The Pooh! It was so stinking cute!!! He didn't want to leave! 

 

 

 

The day really couldn't have gone any better! 👍The boys were amazingly behaved & enjoyable 99% of the day! Jude even  managed to hold a smile without a nap!

Joel gave it a good effort but did end up taking a "time out" to nap for about an hour. It worked out fine, too! Jon & Jude got to ride a couple rides Joel wasn't able to while I stayed with Joel on the sidelines watching.

 

 

After nap time, we decided we would go ahead and grab some dinner. We had assumed we wouldn't stay late enough to catch the fireworks but we were thinking at this point, we may make it!! It was almost 7 & The boys were still in good spirits, just hungry! By mutual request, corn dogs & apples were our menu! 

{{Shot in my Minnie Mouse Ears}}

 

With an hour and a half left before fireworks, we went in search of more characters... By far, the favorite was MINNIE MOUSE!! They LOVED her!! And she was so sweet to them!!

She was my favorite, too! ;-)

 

We did get to watch the fireworks show!! We didn't end up leaving the park until close to 10:00! Good job kids! Turns out it truly is one of the happiest places on earth! 😉

 

 

We love you Disney!!

 

Day 4, Cali: So Hollywood!

We woke up bright & early on day 4(as usual) ready for another fun-filled day! We reserved a hotel in Anaheim that night(so we could wake up & head to Disneyland Wed) so we figured we would sight see that direction & land at the hotel.

Here's a shot of the boys ready to go sporting their patriotic tanks Diane bought them. So sweet of her!  

I had mentioned to Jon that I wanted to see LA area if we had time. He's been to LA so it was no biggie to him but ofcourse, he made the {{exhaustingly long with crazy amounts of traffic}} trip to show me! I will always be thankful! He hates traffic & California is not short on stupid drivers. :-P

Our first stop once in LA was an impromptu hike up to see The HOLLYWOOD sign! We had planned on driving around to get the best photo we could when we stumbled upon a state park with a hiking trail! I packed one sundress and ofcourse, I picked that day to wear it with sandals! Haha. I managed fine and it was totally worth the stop!

Hello HOLLYWOOD!! {Thumbs Up}

{{Look close...the sign is WAY in the background!}}

{{Jude hiking with daddy ♥ }}

It's so wild that we were in the middle of a crazy busy {smoggy} city & then after driving 2 miles-ish up a hill & hiking up maybe a quarter mile on a trail we find this view of the "Hollywood Hills"

{{Snagging a kiss from my love bug, Joel! ♥♥♥}}

J&J had a blast getting absolutely filthy! They are true boys! Give them rocks, dirt & a hill and they are in Heaven! ♥

After finishing up our hiking "adventure," we drove into Beverly Hills to see RODEO Drive & look for stars! :) I must have been looking so hard I forgot to snap some shots with my iPhone. I'll upload pics I took with my Rebel later. As hard as I looked, I was unsuccessful in a star sighting. Next time... ;-)

We made a pit stop at Starbucks {Beverly Hills} to change clothes, diapers and to treat ourselves after several hours in the car! The boys chose cake pops & Jon and I got our usual Mocha Fraps!

Joel had inhaled his cake pop by the time I got my camera out, haha. I couldn't believe it so I had him show me. Yep, sure enough! The boy can eat some cake!!

Back on the road...

We checked into our hotel in Anaheim around 6:00, dropped off our bags & headed to Downtown Disney! The boys were exhausted so we just had dinner & walked around for a quick bit.

Both the boys were passed out before we got to the hotel! 🎉 We were praying for a good night's sleep for all...which we got! J&J slept 12 hours!!! Thank you, Jesus!