California Vacation 2012 - Part I

Just a fair warning: Very long post.

 Off we go!  Watching the planes take off and land at SLC!  I Love how excited they were to see the planes!  Almost as excited as me! ;)

 Landing in Long Beach, California.  Girls first plane (official) plane ride.  They did marvelous!

 Long Beach airport is different.  We had to exit the plane this way.  I liked it.  You get off and on so much faster! Plus, it felt like we were back in the fifties.

 Our first night there (Wednesday) we headed to Downtown Disney.  They had DD on a lamppost and I made the mistake of asking the Wood boys what double d meant.

 Cute!

 Thursday, we headed into Disney's California Adventures.  This above picture is the square space in between the two parks. 

 Away we go!

 Our first celeb sighting!  Mickey!  How appropriate @ Disneyland.

 As you can tell, Jason didn't really like all the motion on the Mickey Ferris Wheel.

 Love her expression!

 Aw Woody! 

It was so cute to see Colter meet his idol.  He was a little timid at first but then was all over Buzz!

 This was taken after Toy Story Mania.  Some people just rave about that ride.  I thought it was fun.  I really liked how easy it was for the kids to play the game!

We had to hit Disney on a 100 degree day, in September. This pond looked really welcome to play in so, I started a water fight with the kids. Found a sign nearby here a little later that said, please watch your kids. Meaning, hey idiot parent don't let your kids play in the water fountain and don't START the fight.

I thought it was cute how Donald signed the autograph books.

 Look at Colter's face. :)

 The famous Cars Land. 

 Luigi's tire ride.  Kinda boring. I gotta say, I'm not the best Disneyland advocate.  It was fun but I didn't quite get what all the hype surrounding it is all about.  Annnd, I just offended all 3 of my readers.

Friday, we headed up north.  Never been to LA before.  It was exciting for me!  We did see the Hollywood sign but didn't have a good chance with the camera to snap a picture of it.

Ellyse found a splash pad.

 Universal was okay to me until we went on the tram and got to see these:

 THE DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES SET!!!!  My day just got so much better!  I am a huge fan of the show and so when we turned the corner and I beheld the whole 'Wisteria Lane' I about jumped out of my seat.  I was all here. Take a picture. Got it?  Get that one.  And that one.  Oh crap, we're gonna miss Gabby's house...........Nerd-o-rama! 

 So, for those of you non D.H. watchers.  This first house was Bree VanDeCamp's house. The yellow one is where Susan 'lived.' 

 This is where Lynette and the Scavo's 'lived.' ( Yes, I understand that they really didn't 'live' there. )

 This is where Edie and Vanessa Williams character 'lived.'

And the one I thought we'd missed but was super happy to finally get a shot of..Gabriel Solis' house.  Sooo Cool!!

That night the boys and I went to Halloween Horror nights.  Lots of lots of spook alley's to walk through. No doubt it was Jason and Lance's favorite part of the trip.  They had fog machines all over and in some parts of the park, you couldn't really see in front of your face it was that foggy. I liked that part.  Made it more fun to actually get scared by some of the walking cast members.

We headed back to the Hotel at about 1:30AM.  The park was open till 2 AM but we had had it and plus, the lines were too long to sit in anymore. It was a sold out night at Universal.  Those L.Aliens love their Halloween Horror Nights!  Crowded!!

 Saturday + the beach = my favorite moment of the trip.  The girls first time seeing and playing in the ocean.   I loved being there with our girls to get to see them experience the ocean for the first time!  It was great!  We went down and got our feet wet and collected sea shells.  I took a nice long walk and found a really big one.  It was awesome. I heart the ocean!! 

We were at Santa Monica Beach and on the peer we finally got to see Minnie and Mickey.  They had to hold their ears up to take the pictures.  Yeah, a little weird for me too! I think by the expression on Allie's face, she caught on that they weren't the 'real' Mickey and Minnie.

 On the drive back to Anaheim after the beach. ;)

 Sunday, we finally made it into Disneyland.  It was my first time as well as the girls.  So fun but sooo crowded!  And hot! 

 I really loved the atmosphere in Fantasyland.  I loved the little European looking villages surrounding all the rides. So cute and quaint.

 And the famous tea cups.  The girls could've rode these back to back several times if we would have let them.  We adults could only take so much though.

I left my camera in the hotel on Monday and so, this menagerie of photo's will have to stop for now.  Jason took some photo's that I'll have to load later.

Overall, it was a great trip!  A bit hot, a bit too many lines, but I loved being with my family 24/7 and getting to enjoy Disneyland, Universal, and of course, the beach all together!!