Disneyland April 2016

After meeting at the airport we took a shuttle to our hotel. We stayed at the Del Sol this time. We've tried a few other hotels in the last few years and I think we've officially decided the Del Sol is our favorite place to stay. We got settled in and watched the end of Conference. Elder Holland spoke last and his talk was exceptional - filled with so many words of encouragement. Having missed most of Conference, I felt lucky to have heard that one for the first time live.

We didn't have anything else to do the rest of the day and with our annual passes, we couldn't resist going over to the parks for a bit. I decided that was our last time going on a Sunday and we are going to find something more Sunday appropriate to do if/when we're there on a Sunday again!

We spent all of Monday and Tuesday at the parks and part of Wednesday as well. Since we knew there was no way we were going to be able to do everything, that took some pressure off and we took time to do some things we'd never done before.

Rides

A few of the rides were closed (the only one I can think of is Jungle Cruise although I know there were a couple more), but nothing major that we were too disappointed about. It was much less crowded than when we were there in December, so that was nice. 

It's not a trip to Disneyland without the Buzz ride (still Corbyn's favorite).   

And getting soaked on Splash Mountain is always a must!

We actually went on Alice in Wonderland which is a ride we usually seem to miss.  

Petrosinos

Bill and Mariah also made Disneyland a part of their Ragnar trip. Their friend, Kendra, came to watch Charlotte during the race and then they all came to Disneyland on Monday and Tuesday. We found it too difficult to keep the whole group together the whole time and ended up just meeting up with them a few times throughout the trip. Peyton was so excited to see Charlotte!

We all watched World of Color together Tuesday night. (This is a pretty terrible picture, but it's the only one we got with them.)

Paint the Night

Grandma and Grandpa stayed at the hotel with a sleeping Logan while we took the older two to the Paint the Night parade Monday night. We saved seats for the Petrosinos, but they decided to ride rides instead of coming to watch it. We were disappointed because we think it is much more amazing than any ride you could do instead and we felt bad they decided to miss out on it. 

It's become one of our favorite things! 

Meeting Characters

It's fun to see Corbyn get excited about meeting Characters even though he's getting older.

Somehow we missed meeting Rapunzel last time, so we made sure to meet her this time especially since Rapunzel is Peyton's current favorite princess.

And of course it's always fun to introduce Logan to characters.

Sometimes we plan to meet characters and other times we just randomly come across a character and take the time to meet them. This was one of those chance meetings. Peyton and Corbyn were riding Dumbo with the Petrosinos and Peter Pan just happened to walk by.

Photo Opps

We love doing Disney with my parents and I love pictures like this one with my babies and their grandparents at Disneyland. 

I follow Disneyland on Instagram and most Mondays they post a #matterhornmonday picture, so we had to take a picture with the Matterhorn (on Monday) in our Stately Type The Mountain are Calling shirts since the Disney mountains are always calling us!

I love how tiny Logan looks in this picture with Dumbo!

Pictures with the Sword in the Stone never get old.

We always try to get at least one good family picture for each Disney trip. This was the picture for this trip.

Monte Cristo Sandwich

Rog has always wanted to try a Monte Cristo Sandwich at Cafe Orleans, but the wait is always long and we never want to wait. I decided to plan ahead this time and surprise him with reservations for lunch on Monday. My parents took our kids to lunch next door at the French Market Restaurant. We each got a soup (I got French Onion and Rog got Gumbo - both were really good!) and we shared the Monte Cristo Sandwich. It definitely did not disappoint and sharing it was perfect. Getting one each would have been too much!

This was one of the highlights of the trip because Rog usually just does what the kids and I want to do. It was fun to do something he wanted to do for a change!

Sheriff of the Day

We spent most of Tuesday at California Adventure and the first thing we did was go on Toy Story Mania. When Rog, Corbyn, and Peyton were in the gift shop after riding it, a worker came up to Peyton and told her Jessie had picked her to be the Sheriff of the Day. She got a magical paper that got our whole group onto Toy Story Mania (and the Buzz ride) with no wait and gave us priority seating for World of Color. (We hadn't been planning on going to World of Color, but decided we'd better take advantage of it and we were glad we did - our seats were pretty amazing!) She also got a Jessie hat for free and got to meet Jessie without waiting in line.

We took advantage of not having to wait for Toy Story Mania and rode it all day because seriously, when do you get to ride Toy Story Mania over and over all day without having to wait?! Never.

We usually don't ride Toy Story Mania with Logan because it makes playing the game more difficult, so we took turns watching him outside the ride. He got to ride King Triton's Carousel many times since it is right there.

He also spent a lot of time looking around the gift shop.

He ended up getting Mickey dressed like Woody for his souvenir of the trip.

And Corbyn ended up getting a Buzz toy. I think Corbyn will always have a soft spot for Buzz and Logan is following in his brother's footsteps. 

This was the highlight of our trip and is something we'll never forget. Peyton talks about it all the time and is planning on being Jessie for Halloween. It's things like this that make Disney so great!

Other New Things

We've always heard good things about the Mickey and the Magical Map show, but never made it over to that part of the park to watch it. (We've also never taken the kids to Toon Town - that's first on the list for our next trip!)

We thought it was a fun show and enjoyed seeing some of the characters that don't always get as much attention as some of the more popular characters - King Louie, Sebastian, Pocahontas, Mulan, Stitch, and Tiana.

We went in the early afternoon and both Logan and Peyton fell asleep. A shame because Rapunzel also made an appearance and Peyton would have loved that!

We also went to a sneak peak of The Jungle Book (the live action one). It looks really cool, but somehow we haven't seen the actual movie yet.

Traveling Home

The kids were on Spring Break, but Rog couldn't miss his Thursday class two weeks in a row, so we had to get home. We only had time to squeeze in a few last rides, pictures, souvenirs, pin trades, and an ice cream cone on the way out Wednesday morning before we had to leave to catch our flight home.

Disneyland with this group is truly our happy place! The only thing that made leaving so soon bearable was knowing we'll be back for one last trip with our annual passes in November before they expire.

Logan was mesmerized watching the planes at the airport. 

Ragnar immediately followed by Disneyland made for an exhausting (but fun and totally worth it) trip!