Disneyland Vacation 1

We are back, and my cold seems gone, so I'm finally able to show everyone how our vacation to Southern California went last week. We went down just a little bit early to spend some time visiting/staying with my sister Mindy and her family and visiting with my brother Caleb as well. We had fun just chilling with them at their house and we also went to the beach where a pigeon took a dump on my head. No joke, I had my hat on so only a little bit got on my back. Note: I totally forgot that the ocean is not warm anymore in October, but we still had fun splashing around. I honestly think James' favorite thing is water, for playing in not drinking, he cannot get enough of it!
On Tuesday was our first day at Disneyland. FYI, I LOVE DISNEYLAND. I first went when I was 8, and then in High School my family moved down to Orange County so we had year passes and I went all the time. I was obsessed. Having said that, if you too love Disneyland then I suggest waiting to take your kids there until they are a little bit older. If your child screams all the time/nonstop and cannot sit still for thirty seconds unless everyother second they are bribed with dumdums and/or fruit snacks then just wait to take them. If not then they will ruin it for you. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but James did make having fun a little bit difficult for us. The first day it rained despite the fact that I checked the weather out before packing and it was supposed to be sunny all week long. Luckily it only rained the first part of the day, not all day. The first ride he went on was the Buzz Lightyear ride in Tomorrowland. He was totally confused, like "what is this place? where are we? what's going on?" It was cute. Then we took him on this rocketride that scared him just a little. The main problem with James and Disneyland was 1.) waiting in line when he had no idea why 2.) there were so many things there to look at he wanted to run off and go and explore them all at once 3.) sitting still in his stroller, if the stroller wasn't constantly moving then he would start screaming the problem is it's hard to decide where you want to go, rides, etc. if you can't stand still for 2 minutes to look at the map and decide. Having said that, we didn't go on a whole lot of rides the first day. (In fact, I was soooo tempted that first day to call my sister and offer to pay her to watch James just so that Stephen and I could enjoy one day there, but I didn't call her.) Here are some pictures of the first day

When James was really bad we took him to the Mark Twain Pirate Island so he could run around. Suddenly he had a poopy diaper and the bathrooms there had no changing station. I was afraid to wait because I didn't want him to poop through, so, we found a spot where we thought no one would really pass by, and started to change his diaper there on the ground when suddenly right when we opened his diaper all these people passed by, some laughed, and some looked upset. Oh well...



After that we went on the riverboat cruise ride and James fell asleep. It was nice to finally have some peace and quiet, even though he only slept for like 45 min.

Then we watched this Star Wars show where they called up children from the audience to get trained as Jedis. It was so cute! One kid was scared of Darth Vader, so the master Jedi told him to use the force, and so the kid lifted up his arm and Darth Vader flew to the ground (good actor right?) and suddenly the kid wasn't scared anymore.

After Disneyland closed we headed over to California Adventureland with Jeff and went on the Monster's Inc. ride, which James loved, and then to A Bug's Life (land?) and he loved the rides there, too.





He was so tired at the end of the day! By the way this video was taken right before we went inside that day.