Disneyland 2014

After Hudson's big first day, he was not able to go back to school, because we had a HUGE surprise for him!!!
Shane and I planned a trip to Disneyland:) In the nick of time we were able to get all of our documents and go to the happiest place on Earth with Joel and Amy and their family, Jan, and Cherie and Jaime.

Nice picture Fletchy-haha

For such a long time Hudson has been begging us to take him to Disneyland, and we were finally able to make it happen. We woke the boys up last Sunday morning and told them the big news. They were pretty tired but once it registered the boys were excited! Hudson kept pinching himself saying, "is this a dream"-haha!
We met Auntie Cherie and Jaime at the airport, and were grateful for their helping hands. The boys were tired, but so excited to fly. They all did great, however, a MAJOR shout out needs to go out to baby Fletch for being the absolute best traveler!
We were super lucky and everything went very smoothly with our short layover and transfer. The boys wrestling on the airport ground got me a few dirty looks, but other than that they were pretty big champs.
The day we arrived the weather was super hot, so we hung out at the pool and ordered pizza and had an early night.

Fletch workin on his tan:)

The next morning Hudson was so so excited he could barely contain himself. He was up and dressed in his diy mickey mouse shirt super early.I will never forget Hudson barging in my room and announcing "Lets go to Disneyland". We stayed at the Residence Inn(Marriott) and it was AMAZING. I loved the pool, the breakfast was unreal, and they even upgraded our room for free. The room was so great. We will definitely stay there again!

 When we were all ready to go everyone left for the park, and I stayed behind to see if my new stroller would arrive. I met up with everyone about an hour later. The kids went to Fantasyland and went on the dumbo ride, peter pan, the matterhorn- 4 times, the tea cups and it's a small world, all in about 2 hours. There were no lines at all. We then ripped over to Tommorowland. This was where Hudson was able to ride his favorite ride, Star Tours. He went back on that ride several times. We went on a few different rides, like Buzz Lightyear (which I sucked at) before stopping for lunch. I found the amazing baby center, and had a delicious corndog, all things I read about online (very helpful tips:)

Cooper and Auntie Cherie

After lunch we went over to Adventureland and went on Indiana Jones, and the safari ride, Pirates of the Caribbean,. The first day was a big success. Lots of rides, very few lines, but it was CRAZY hot, and our feet were super sore, even with my good shoes. The first day our SUUUUUUPER awesome stroller did not arrive on time, so I just rented a stroller. It made SUCH  a huge difference having a good stroller the following days. Poor Fletcher got a small sunburn on his cheeks, but again was a major champ. It was so much better for him when we got our new stroller.

The awesomest little traveller!!!

Day one we all wore our Mickey Mouse shirts, and it really did make it so so much fun having them. Everyone commented on them. I will make more next time we go for sure. It also made it so easy to find people in our very large group! We liked them so much we all washed them and wore them again on Friday.

Tuesday, I felt was also a very smooth day. We started out in California Adventure and went to Carsland. For all of the hype, I have to say I was not disappointed. I loved the Radiator Springs ride, and when we were staying behind with Cooper and Jade, we saw Mater, Lightning McQueen and  the Firetruck. We lined up and waited not very long, then got fast passes and rider swap passes and were able to all ride the ride a couple times without waiting.

Lightning McQueen

The Firetruck!

Mater:)

 Early in the morning Cherie also got us Fast Passes for World of Color which was SERIOUSLY worth the trip alone!
I loved every minute of it. I wanted to cry when it was over:)Typically we brought the boys home for their bedtimes but that night we stayed late as I had shown Hudson youtube videos of World of Color and he wanted to see it. About halfway through the show he sat himself in the stroller and fell asleep. haha


Our second day we also went and saw the Aladdin show. Again, I LOVED it. Disney is so smart. They have air conditioned shows for kids and parents:) I really loved that show:) The boys went on the Tower of Terror and California Screamin as well as the Toy Story ride, and then we ran into Donald Duck. Hudson was too short for the California Screamin ride which is a huge rollercoaster, and he cried for about 20 minutes because he wanted to ride it so bad-ha! I told him it just meant we will have to go back again one day:)

We met Donald. Cooper insisted on ruining the photo. Our Donald was really funny:)

We also rode another favorite ride, soarin over California. It was such a neat ride and totally made me want to move to CA. :)Again, I feel like we were pretty lucky as we just walked on to those rides, and the people who wanted to got to ride as much as they wanted.

That night for dinner we went to the Rainforest Cafe. I am not sure what was going on, but Cooper was insane! The atmosphere was fun, but holy moly my kids were NUTS!!

Cute Linky and Cole

 On Wednesday we took the day off. It was nice to relax and hang around the hotel. We went back to downtown Disney and took the boys shopping at the Ginormous Disney store and to the Lego store. Hudson wanted "ears" so we let him pick some out. It was nice to just spend time as the 5 of us and move at a slower pace. We also enjoyed some yummy pretzels and ice cream.

Ears!

Cute Happy Boys

The Lego store

One small meltdown(of many)-The happiest place on earth...right?

Thursday we started out back at Disneyland and used out early magic morning pass. It ended up being kind of a bust as most of the rides had longer lines than normal haha. Again it was scorching out, but we came a bit more prepared with lots of frozen drinks. The kids went back on the matterhorn, the tea cups and I got to go on the Peter Pan ride. We also went back and did Indiana Jones and planned on doing all of the wet rides. Splash  Mountain was closed, so awesome Aunt Amy, took the boys to the Jedi Training Academy. I honestly did not think that Hudson would even care about it, but he recognized Darth Vadar from the Star Wars Angry Birds-haha, and ended up LOVING it. It was honestly the cutest thing ever. Cole and Lincoln and Hudson all got chosen for the academy. It again, was the CUTEST!!

Hudson and Darth

Jedi Training

After lunch we planned on heading back over to California Adventure and going on the Grizzly River Run(another wet ride). That is where our trip Drama happened. We had just taken a double decker trolley bus ride and left disneyland, and the ticket checker into CA was suuuuper slow. In one of the lines Cooper got off the stroller, but we did not realize until we were all getting ready to get on the grizzly ride.
Me and Shane started running back to the gate to see if we could find him. It had been at least 5-10 minutes. I talked to someone at the entrance of Disney and they said they had a missing 2 year old, but that he kept saying his name was Kevin and his brother's name was Jake. The trolley driver's name was Kevin, and we had all just said Thank you Kevin.  They made me trek it over to the missing childrens place instead of seeing Cooper aka Kevin. During that time thankfully Shane was reunited with Cooper, and he had gone back to meet up with the rest of our party, but he had my park tickets so when I tried to get back  they would not allow me back in the park. The whole ordeal was really stressful. Damn Cooper:)
After that ride we ended up taking in a couple shows. We went to the Disney Junior Show and the Crush Turtle Talk show. The boys LOVED the Disney junior show and at one point Cooper got so excited he head butted Shane in the mouth and gave Shane a bruised and bloody lip-ha! Shane bought himself a turkey leg, and we bought Fletchy a new outfit as he needed to be refreshed.

The Disney Jr. Show

Show war wounds:)

The cutest, sweetest baby Buzz!!!!

We ended the day by taking the boys on a bunch of quick rides in Bug's Land and came home and passed out

Bug's Land

Friday we decided to all wear our shirts again. We lined up first thing and were able to get our picture with Mickey Mouse. The kids loved it. If you ask Cooper who he saw at Disneyland, he will tell you " Mickey", and that he gave Mickey a hug. So cute!!

The Whole group

Cooper getting his hug.

Space Mountain re-opened on Friday, so we literally RAN to the front of the line and rode it first. It was all done up for Halloween, and it was super creepy. Hudson LOVED it. We then ran over and did the Haunted Mansion, Pirates again and Splash Mountain. After Splash, I was drenched. The boys rode the rides a couple more times, and Cherie and I took the little kids to Toon Town. Amy and Micah had a date at the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique, so we stopped in there on the way to Toon Town. Honestly, it was the cutest thing ever. Micah was so adorable! The older kids went over to the innovations show and Jaime got to meet Thor and Captain America( as they were good looking:)

Splash Mountain

Princess Micah and Jade Post Boutique

Later on, with Micah all dressed up everyone had lunch with the Princesses at Ariels Grotto. My boys were not too interested so we just ate in Disneyland, then went over to C.A. and rode a ton of rides. We went on Monsters inc about 3-4 times, the Ferris Wheel, the Goofy Pilot roller coaster, the jumping Jelly Fish and a few others. We were SOOOO HOT, so we decided to go back to the Pool and cool off. It happened to be Dapper Day in the park, and despite it being 37 degrees Celcius so many people were dressed up. It was so much fun to see.  There really was no lines at all, but it was just so hot! We saw some more characters and Cooper even got some autographs.The kids really were so cute with the characters. They would just get so star struck. I loved it!

Jesse!

 

The kids really did so well. It was very chaotic at times, but I am so thankful for the memories we made. I think we will wait another 4-5 years and go back when Fletchy can ride all of the rides. I love my family and feel so blessed that we were able to have this fun experience:)