The Big "D"

Of course that's code for Disneyland- I mean really, what bigger D is there! As most of you know, we surprised our kiddos with a trip to Disneyland for Christmas. It was a hard secret to keep seeing as how we planned the trip in October. I'm still surprised that none of them found out early. I was worried that the parks were going to be crazy around Christmas, so I planned for the worst so that I wouldn't get my hopes up. And it worked! The first day we were their (Dec 28th) we spent only in Disneyland (we had park hopper passes), and by the end of the day it was packed- standing room only! The second day we spent at California Adventure and it wasn't nearly as crowded. And our final day (the day of rain!) we went back and forth between the two doing the things we liked best.



I did learn a few things on our little trip:
1) don't leave the ponchos (you know, the ones you purposely brought with you just in case it rained) in your hotel room, because the ones in the park cost $7.00 each!
2) if you don't want to wait an hour to ride on Dumbo, go to Fantasyland first thing in the morning. You can ride all the little kid rides without waiting in long lines.
3) if you get motion sickness- DON'T ride the teacups!
4) don't expect your baby girl who loves Mickey mouse and carries his doll around everywhere to LOVE Mickey mouse in person! Life-size mouse = kind-of scary!
5) try not to wear a white polo with tan colored pants because you'll get asked more than once where the bathroom is or where someone might be able to get a hot dog!

We stayed one extra day in CA so that we could go to the beach. Now granted it wasn't really beach weather- it was still fun. It happened to be the warmest day of the trip (high of 70). We drove down the coastal highway and ended up stopping at Crystal Cove State Park. The kids had a lot of fun playing in the tide pools and exploring. They found 2 star fish, hermit crabs, and lot of other sea creatures. And yes, we touched them all even though you weren't suppose to! We had a great Christmas and a Fantastic trip! I don't know if we'll be able to top it next year!