The Family Goes to Disneyland...

On August 30th, with Zak's sister Jamie and my niece, Jesika and nephew, Jake in tow, Jaxon and I headed off to Disneyland. Jamie and her family are due to move up to Portland, OR next week so this was kind of a last visit (at least for a while) to see us. We thought that this deserved a visit to the "Happiest Place on Earth".

After rousing the kids from their slumber we headed out early - 7:30 am to get to Disneyland and enjoy the day. My friend Michelle and her daughter Tenley were to meet up with us in front of the kennels at 9 am.

Upon arrival I called Michelle to find out where she was at and was informed that they were just rolling out of bed since Michelle had to work the previous night until midnight (poor thing). So...Jamie and I were on our own until they could meet up with us.

Jamie and I were kind of skeptical as to whether or not there would be huge crowds considering it was the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend. We kept our fingers crossed and were not disappointed. Pleasantly enough, there were very short waits for the rides and little in the way of crowds. What a relief!! We were able to get in a lot of rides and Michelle and Tenley greeted us as we exited Pirates of the Caribbean.

Overall, we had a great day and the adults were even able to get a few of the "big kid" rides in thanks to multiple adults in the group and Disney's invention, the baby-swap pass. This magic pass allows one adult to wait in line, in this case with FastPass for Space Mountain, and then give a paper pass to one or two other adults that wait outside with the kidlets. The waiting adults are magically allowed to enter the ride through the exit or disabled entrance with little to no wait in line. Jamie's ride was cut short when the ride abruptly stopped and all the lights came on inside the ride. She said it was quite a sight to see all of the track, twisting and turning in very little space. Since they were inconvenienced, the riders were allowed to go a second time. Pretty cool. If you are going with a group of children, I highly recommend investigating the baby-swap pass option.

The kids enjoyed all of the Fantasyland rides as well as Pirates, the Haunted Mansion, and the Winney the Pooh ride. We even stayed for the fireworks which Jaxon relayed commentary for. I got an earful of "Oooo's" and "Ahhhh's" all in the correct places. Of course he did all of this with a huge grin on his face. There was no evidence that he was scared at all by the explosions.

Jaxon of course, promptly fell asleep as soon as his head hit the seat back of his stroller and was zonked out before we even passed through the gates to leave.

We had a great time and look forward to the Conner's coming back to go again.