CA trip (part 2 - Disneyland)

I've had mixed feelings about going to Disneyland for a long time, but a lot of the girls' friends had recently gone, and we wanted to take a trip to CA anyway, so it seemed like it was time. It was a little hard to buy our four expensive tickets, but it turned out to be SO worth it. I now get all you people who love Disneyland!

This post is long and detailed, but I wanted to write down everything so we could remember our first family trip.

We got the car all packed up and said goodbye to the Fogts (we would be leaving for St. George straight from Disneyland). We got to disney early enough to park and take the shuttle train and get there right when it opened. The girls could hardly contain themselves, they were so excited! Running through the parking garage:

 We walked into the park and the girls were mesmerized by everything. They were walking slowly trying to take everything in, but Dan was on a mission to get on rides right away. We heard that Dumbo is always a long line so we decided to get an early jump on that. We still had to wait probably 20 minutes and the girls were not prepared. Somehow we forgot to tell them there would be a lot of line-waiting. But they got the hang of it pretty quickly.

Dan, Alta and Olive were in one car and Ellie and I were in another:

 Dan took the girls on the teacups a couple of times after that because there was practically no line. They loved it and wanted to spin as fast as possible:

 Our friends the Kearls happened to be there that day so we met up with them for an hour or so. We rode Small World (Olive's favorite, she just smiled and danced the entire time. I loved it too, I was so impressed with the detail!).

 And then went to Toon Town. Dan took Olive to go get some fast passes while I waited in line with Alta and Ellie to go on Gadget's Go Coaster. It was kind of a long wait and when we got to the ride, I found out it was only two people to a seat, oops. Luckily Ellie was brave enough to ride with Tara! The coaster is super fun for little kids but SO short. When it ended Alta was seriously bugged that it was over. She cheered up as soon as I told her it was just a practice ride to see if they wanted to go on the big coasters.

We said good-bye to the Kearls and Dan took Alta and Ellie to explore Toon Town while Olive and I played by the fountain and had a snack. The girls loved Mickey's house:

 And Ellie found Minnie! Not realizing there was an hour-long-wait to see her, Ellie started running towards her but a worker stopped her to tell her she had to wait in line. This picture sums it up:

Dan took them on the Roger Rabbit, which was a total bust. They didn't like it at all. But Olive had a blast dancing to the music by the fountains and smiling at everyone that walked by!

We decided to head over to Space Mountain. We stopped for another ride on the teacups (it was so awesome to jump right on without waiting!), this time with me. The girls made me spin them as fast as possible and as long as I looked down, I didn't get too dizzy.

Olive and I played while Dan, Alta and Ellie waited for Space Mountain. Once again, we didn't realize there were only two people per seat, but there was a really nice lady behind Dan in line that told him and offered to ride with Alta. (Her and her family also happened to be from Utah; they saw the 801 area code from our phone number written on our girls' arms in Sharpie.)

I still can't believe the girls went on that ride. Ellie is afraid of the dark (among many other things), and Alta went on something so scary with a complete stranger!

I got to jump in the fast pass line right after they got done and we convinced Alta to go with me. She said she was feeling a little sick but would come so I wouldn't be scared by myself.

Ellie hanging out in the gift shop while they were waiting for Alta and me to get back:

We were all getting hungry but didn't have a lot of time before we needed to use our Big Thunder Mountain fastpasses. We ate more snacks and got churros and a giant turkey leg, which was so good:

Big Thunder Mountain!

Both the girls loved it, but Ellie still didn't want to ride it again because she didn't like the dynamite or the bats.

Right as I was about to get back on with Alta, they closed it! But Jamie and Andy and their kids had just gotten there so we went to meet up with them. Olive had just fallen asleep (finally!) so Andy volunteered to stay with her in the stroller while we walked through the Tarzan tree (which used to be Swiss Family Robinson and Dan was pretty disappointed that it had changed) and rode Pirates of the Caribbean. I have no memories of this ride; if I had, I probably would have realized it had all the things to put Ellie over the edge (dark, loud, scary realistic pirates, canons, guns, and fire). She was terrified and laid her head in my lap and covered her eyes while I held her ears. It was totally overwhelming for her and she never quite got over it the rest of the day!

Olive was awake by the time we got back and we all went on Jungle Cruise. Ellie had been talking about it for days even though she had no clue what it was, so we thought it might cheer her up. The line was deceptively long and it wasn't worth the wait, and she was still pretty skittish about everything.

(I actually don't know which ride this is from)

Next we all split up and did different things. Jamie, Jackson, Alta and I used our passes for Big Thunder Mountain and then went through the Haunted Mansion (which got stuck a couple times but Alta was pretty brave and still loved it). Then Dan and all the boys went on Indiana Jones while Jamie and I and the girls waited:

 We switched so Jamie and I could go with her boys, and Dan and Andy took the girls to the Tikki Room (which Ellie was also scared of but liked the song, and Olive loved everything about):

It was getting dark and Fantasmic was starting soon, so we said goodbye to the Marinos family and went to grab some dinner and get to our spots to watch the show. Once again, it was dark and loud with bright lights and Ellie just sat there crying and asking to leave. She was so overwhelmed by this point! I took her to salvage her Disneyland experience. I bought her popcorn and a lollipop and we went to ride Dumbo again, and she was as happy as could be. Alta and Dan met up with us and everything was closing, but we hopped on the carousel for one last family ride.

Alta fell asleep in the stroller on the walk back to the car, and all three were out within minutes of driving.  It was definitely a successful day.

We drove all the way to St. George and got there at 3:30 in the morning, then got up again in the morning to finish the drive. The girls were all pretty good and we were happy to be home. Alta and Ellie played "Disneyland" for a week afterwards and talked about it to everyone. We all loved it and can't wait to go back again!