Disneyland Getting There & Day 1

Y'all ready for this?! We spent months and months working and saving and preparing and getting super excited for our trip. We were planning to leave home Saturday, September 18. So dinner Friday night was only fitting to have celebration pancakes! We didn't have chocolate chips, so butterscotch chips, bananas, and Mickey Shapes made our dinner perfect in our excitement!!

After attending our good friend, Jill's, baptism Saturday afternoon we hit the road directly from the church. We made it as far as Las Cruces, NM and as we pulled in to town I asked if we could please find a place with a suite so I could actually sleep in a bed. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express and there were enough beds for all of us! HOORAY! I slept extremely well, but woke early in anticipation, like Christmas.

We drove up through Arizona and were able to stop to visit some friends. We attended church with Scott, Melissa and their family, as well as Michael, Nichole and their family and Taylor who all came to town to see us. After church we headed to Scott and Melissa's house for dinner and to catch up. It was so great to see everyone again! It was like we were all together in Oregon just yesterday~although the kids are all a lot bigger now! We only got pictures on our phone when the sun had already set, so not great... and its in Ethan's pocket right now. I'll try to add it later.

Then we headed up to Carol's house to crash for the night. It was great to see her and her generosity was such a blessing! Thanks so much Carol!

Monday we finally got to California!!! We went to my parents condo since it was too early to check in to ours. My brother was already there with his family, so we hit the pool and played and played. It was so exciting! But more exciting was that we were going to Disneyland FINALLY on Tuesday!

We created a monster with all the waiting and driving...
Getting ready for all the fun!
We hit Indiana Jones Adventure first. A handful of the kids had to wait, so we tried to capture some cuties... perhaps some other kids should have waited. It was a little scary (or a lot scary) for some of them and kind of set them up for fear the rest of the trip.
After the big crowd went to the Tiki Room, we hit the Jungle Cruise. Our guide was awesome! So much better than the one last time we road the ride in Florida.

This little cutie was such a trooper going along for the ride.

We explored Tarzan's treehouse...

... and found a little monkey.
Then we were off to Tomorrowland for lunch and the oh-so-important Jedi Training Camp. We ended up waiting for awhile for it to begin and wouldn't you know it, we found some more monkeys...


After his Aunt Kari threw him up in the air to get him to actually jump up and down, Bryant got chosen to train! Woohoo!

After receiving his training, Padawan Bryant took on the Sith Darth Vader and fought like a true Jedi, "Luke Skywalker couldn't have done it better himself!" The actual battle is on video... I may or may not try to get it up here.
We hit all the rides in Tomorrowland, Buzz Lightyear (loved it!), Space Mountain (which was Ghost Galaxy for Halloween and somewhat scary for some), Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, and the Astro Orbiter.
It was a great first day to our trip! We had a blast! Once we were done at the park we walked back to our condo and had dinner. The kids all crashed in bed and the parents were soon to follow!