Disneyland Did Not Disappoint!

Arrival at the Long Beach Airport and greeted by theses beauties!  Oh how I enjoy palm trees!

My favorite part of any vacation with the Wood's is the Shanghai Rummy game.  At a few points in the game, one's hand becomes molded into something unidentified with how many cards you have to keep in your hand at once.  Here, the creator of the game, demonstrates for us.

Downtown Disney scenery

The kids instantly found their souvenirs at Build A Bear in Downtown Disney.  It was pretty much adorable the whole time, minus the lady that we so kindly asked if the rest of our party could cut in line in front of.  It really wasn't going to slow her down any due to us all at the same stuff station. She's wasn't so adorable.  But check out these little's face's filled with joy.

We had a rest day the first day after we arrived so we went to Downtown Disney first.  This was in front of California Adventure Park, with their new Mickey's.

We went to California Adventure Park the next day.  We sort of hit the jackpot that day.  We never waited in line for more than 20 minutes for each ride, we kept getting in line and then looking at the line behind us and it had grown from little to huge.  We found a very enjoyable spot to eat in the shade, and also got into a show during the middle of the day that allowed us all to rest in the air conditioning.  Plus, we even got Fast Passes for World of Color which was FREAKING amazing!!

On top of that, Mickey Mouse was right inside California Adventure Park and he was just adorable with the kids!  The last time we were in Disneyland, we never got to meet Mr. Mouse so this was a treat!

A big huge shout out goes to the boys who were running around all day getting Fast passes for our lazy tookus.'  Jason had over 20k steps in by the days end! 

Hugs from Mickey!

Noses!!  Aww!

Darling!

Did you know that the professional photographer is okay to take a photo with your phone if you ask?

Oswald.  ????????

Stopped for refreshments and look how fun!  Disneyland Coke bottles. 

Guardians of the Galaxy was new for us.  It was so much fun for about halfof us.  The other half were screaming and or ready to puke.

Check out Emma. She stayed this way the whole ride.

Everybody loves a parade.  Emma was born to watch Disney Parades.  I've never seen this kid so happy.

Car's Land.  It was new the last time we came to Disneyland and the ride had a 2 hour wait time.  We got to try it this time on Fast Passes.  Super nice!  Pretty fun ride.

I liked this little alley way.  We stopped at our favorite... Ghirardelli.

The garbage man kept walking back and forth over the cobblestone street and it was incredibly loud and obnoxious.

We were excited to FINALLY get into Disneyland.  It only took us an hour of waiting in the security line, the stroller line, and the entrance line to just enter the park.  To say that it was packed was a ginormous understatement!!  It was maddening the amount of people that were there that day!  MADDENING!!

Check out our cute shirts though.  Kohl's for the win!

I had Jason snap this photo before Splash Mountain even though it kind of looks like I've been through the shower anyway.

See all that weight in the front of the log?  Yeah, we got soaked!!  If you look carefully, you can see Jason's shirt's already soaked from the drop in the dark in the middle of the ride.

I tried to snap a photo of the marching band, they're in there but mostly you can just see all the MILLIONS of people we had to fight to get anywhere that day.

Ellyse and I kind of took off for a bit on our own and got distracted by all the fun fun things to purchase.  

Caramel Apple Mickeys!

We played around on Main Street for a while and found a hidden gem where all the characters seem to come out of.  Here's Pluto.

There is Pluto and one of the Chipmunks and Cruella.

And Mickey!  Again!  

And Minnie!

Ellyse wanted to try a chiller at Starbucks.  

Alice, Rabit, Hatter, and the Twins!

Finally caught up with the rest and headed to the Buzz Lightyear game

Made it to a cool show called Mickey's Magical Paintbrush.  

Very cool show!!

Crepe paper rained from the sky.

Storybook ride was another new one for a lot of us.  Thanks for the tip Emma!

Toon Town was a first for me and it was cute!  Allie ran into an Instragram Celebrity.  She was so excited!

 I was on the hunt for hidden Mickey's everywhere and I cheated and looked online and found this guy!

Allie and I needed a little Space Mountain but the line was showing a 65 minute wait time.  She's the only one who would wait it out with me.  Luckily, we got in in 55 minutes!

Allie could not stop saying that she LOVED that ride, over and over and over again!  I think she found a favorite ride!  Way worth the wait!

Allie in front of the castle.  Not the greatest photo but still.

Allie and I ran from Space Mountain to the Matterhorn and she was brave and did the single rider line with me.  We didn't love that ride too much 

We got to see the Magical Light Parade. The hoards of crowd prevented most of the rest of our group from seeing the parade.  Here it is.

The Wood's took us with them to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.  What a wonderful gift they gave to us!  So many precious memories were made and we are so very grateful for their generosity and kindness and love!  Congrats to them!!