Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Disneyland Day 1 - Downtown Disney

For a child, the first trip to Disneyland is a pretty big deal, and I think that we did a pretty good job with our boys.  Sure AJ will not remember it and Jake might a little bit, but darn it we had fun and we have plenty of pictures to show them when they are older.  :)  Ryan had wanted to bring Jake long before this and I was the hold-out.  So I gave in finally  :)  And we took our little boys...but we also had some great help in Grandma and Pa, and the favorite Aunt B.  :)  We all had a wonderful time and the boys had a blast.  I was amazed how much more tired you are when you go with small children.  I mean you are not running from one ride to the next and going from opening to closing...but you are chasing them around, calming tantrums, teaching them patience in the lines, keeping them from picking on each other with their Mickey ears, and carrying the little one around when you are in lines (as strollers cannot go there).  But it was so worth it.  The boys LOVED it.  Got super excited when they saw their favorite characters, and even did great on all the rides.  AJ is our little dare-devil who got scared a couple times but when the ride would come to a stop, would look at one of us and say "more."  :)  Jake only got scared on one, Roger Rabbit.  But did great on all the other ones we took them.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.  :)  This is the first post after all.  :)  We went for 2 1/2 days.  The first day we got comfortable with our room and hung out at Downtown Disney, the second day was Disneyland and the third was California Adventure.  So onto Downtown Disney....
We all had great fun in the HUGE Disney store.  My boys had never been to one (we have a smaller mall) and so this huge one just amazed them.  Jake thought he was pretty hot stuff in this hat.   :)
Daddy pretending to be Grumpy (and yes the beard is attached to the hat)
Grandma got into the spirit as well  :)
My big souvenir that I wanted to buy my boys for their first trip to Disneyland was the traditional Mickey Mouse ears with your name stitched in the back.  I knew I could get away with it with AJ because he is still little, but Jake is VERY particular about his hats and they have to be picked out on his terms.  So about a week before I told him that at Disneyland you could get hats that have Mickey Mouse ears on them and they even stitch your name on the back!!!  Amazingly he thought that sounded pretty cool...but time would tell.  Well we got about one wheel of the stroller into the Disney store and Jake looked at us and said "I want mouse ears!!!"  Guess I made an impression....I was so happy.  So, we bought them their ears that night.  AJ looked darn cute!
And Jake did too.  He loves those ears so much and wore them the entire week.  Even wanted to sleep in them, which we managed to talk him out of...barely.  :)
Our boys...looking good
Not a great picture but it captures it.  For one you can see the stitching of their names on each hat and you can see my silly oldest son.  :)  Jake LOVED his name, and so that night he demanded that he wear his mouse ears backwards with the stitching at the front.  He would even feel it to make sure it was facing the right way.  :)  He figured it out by the end of the night...but it was pretty cute/funny.
We also wanted to take the boys (and yes, in this I include Ryan), to the Lego store.  The huge figures made out of Lego's were amazing and the store itself was just too much fun.
Jake hanging with his pal Hulk
They had a few areas with a bunch of Lego's that you could play with...which really was fun for the entire family.
Jake was actually pretty good with the small Lego's...this boy loves to build things.
AJ really got into it too
I thought this was awesome and was very proud of my creative husband.  Ryan made this turkey all by himself out of his own design.  He rocks the Lego's.   :)
We also had to swing by the Rainforest Cafe so Jake could see the aquarium.  He and Pa thought it was pretty cool.
And then we ended the night at our hotel room watching the Disneyland fireworks.  Yes this is actually our view from the front door of our hotel room (Camelot Inn and Suites).  Pretty cool.
What a first day it was....and now we were all super excited to go to Disneyland the next day...

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