Disneyland! Day one

We had a wonderful opportunity to go to Disneyland earlier this month. We participated in Not Back To School Days at Disneyland! Dianne McClean organizes this amazing event. The conference is 4 days and includes hotel, meal plan, park hopper tickets, YES classes, teen dance and various meet and greet opportunities throughout the 4 days. Mickey Mouse and Cinderella also appeared at breakfast two of our mornings. :)


I hadn't been to Disney since my early 20's and Mark had only been to Disneyworld, which is totally different than Disneyland. I know there is some debate on which is better so I will state that Mark said he enjoyed Disneyland 100x more than Disneyworld. So, there you are. ;-)  We had wanted to take the kids but never knew when and money wise it was always such a huge expense that was hard to justify. This conference gave everything about a 50% reduction, add to that we needed to be in Huntington Beach later that week for my bil's wedding and we knew the time was right this year!

We had so much fun at Disneyland and California Adventure. The kids did wonderful, even K who spent most of the time in the stroller. She loved all the hustle and bustle and sights. :) E. was our adventurous one, which was no surprise. She went on all the roller coasters multiple times and I went along with her because I didn't want her standing alone in line and Mark doesn't like roller coasters! I wasn't sure how my old self would do on the coasters but I still managed just fine, thank you very much! LOL

Here are some pics from our 2.5 days there. We had to leave early to head down to HB and get busy with all the wedding madness so we packed in as much as we possibly could in those few days. The wedding post will come next. :)

 Crossing the Colorado into CA

 Smog all the way to Indio now :(

Green energy pushing all that smog around, brilliant!

As soon as we hit this valley R's asthma kicked in and she coughed the entire trip. :(

Checking in at the California Grand. The kids loved the non stop cartoons (Disney of course) in the lobby

We loved this hotel. Not only was it beautiful and spacious and clean, the staff was incredible! Top notch, took care of everything the moment we drove onto the grounds.  It's expensive but you do get service with that price tag.

Outside both parks looking towards California Adventure

 The Happiest Place on Earth!

 The Family (minus me) I had hoped to get a better shot but the Disney photographer was right there in the middle and surprisingly, we were never all together at the entrance after this picture!

The Matterhorn! (and a very rare shot w/ all 8 of us!)

Mark and S. taking off on the Matterhorn. S. didn't like the coasters so this was pretty much his first and last big ride. :)

Saluting outside of Small World (ok, it was bright ;-) )

On the boat, heading in. It's a small world afterall. It's a small world afterall, it's a small world afterall, it's a small, small world.....

I have some video from Small world. Since I know you all want the song going through your head too, I'll come back to post it. :) My battery died after this so that was the end of Day 1 at Disney!