Ok. I’ve managed to wade through the 800 plus vacation pictures and I’ve narrowed it down to 61. 61 pictures?!? That’s too many to edit and watermark. And do you really want to look through 61 of our family vacation pictures?? No. I need to narrow it down some more. And break this up into several posts. Yeah…

So let me start with the drive down. I had this brilliant idea to keep Isabelle up late so she’d be short on sleep. My reasoning was that she would then be sooooo tired that she would sleep through most of the 6 hour drive down.

Ok, it wasn’t a brilliant idea. It was actually not very well thought out at all. Because with Isabelle being awake that meant WE were awake too, you know the two people who would be driving. We put her down late and then finished up packing and ended up with only a few hours sleep. Yeah, don’t do that. It’s soooooo not brilliant.

And the kicker? She only slept for maybe an hour on the drive down. I think it was because, my friend, Olinda came with us. So Isabelle wanted to play, not sleep. Well at least playing was better than her crying for 6 hours. Which is what I feared would happen.

But Isabelle did great. So when we arrived at the hotel she got to pick out a doll. She picked Mickey. She played with him all through dinner. She was running around and around, tossing Mickey around. We could barely get her to sit down to eat. In our room she was still running around. I had the hardest time getting her to stay still for a picture with her new Mickey doll.

I finally gave up. I resorted to the she’s sleeping and not a fast moving blur picture the next morning.

And you know, that’s what I was going to write about that first night at the hotel. I wanted to write every night of our trip so I wouldn’t forget anything. But every night I was too tired. And now that’s soooo last week. Hope I can remember it all.

Not getting anything else done so decided to draw.

I couldn’t get this out of my head.

Ha ha ha!

I had a Disneyland post all written up. Then Alan read it and said I didn’t say much about the trip. Obviously my one long Disneyland post didn’t cut it. But hey it’s hard trying to cram four days of Disneyland into one post.

The next time we go on vacation I really should make the effort to blog while we’re on vacation, no matter if I’m tired. I MEAN REALLY. Because now it’s 2 weeks later and I’m struggling to remember the things I want to remember. But I’ll give it a try. I don’t know how many days I’ll do but here’s our first day.

On our first day at Disneyland we woke up nice and early (for us). But somehow it just wasn’t early enough.

See, Olinda had decided to join us at the last minute. Like midnight the day we were leaving, last minute. So though me and Alan had tickets, Olinda didn’t. (Isabelle still being two, didn’t need a ticket) So that first morning we had to go to the bank, get breakfast, get Isabelle up and ready, and get Olinda’s ticket.

So that meant by the time we got into the park it must have already been open by at least half an hour. Not a big deal you say. But, you see, we wanted to arrive at least half an hour BEFORE the park opened. So we were actually an hour behind by our calculations.

Alan kept saying, “we’re running late!”

To which I said, “but we’re on vacation! We’re late for vacation?!?”

And his reply would be, “but I need to jam in the fun every minute we’re here.”

Yeah. So us. Late. And on top of that we were in Tomorrowland without a map. How did that happen? Well we stayed at Disney’s Paradise Pier hotel, my first time at a Disneyland hotel, and it was just a short walk over to the monorail. We rode the monorail into Disneyland, my first time on the monorail, and when you get off you’re inside. No front gates, no maps. Just bam! Disneyland. I didn’t know that. I thought we’d be let off at the front gate.

So there we were, first day at Disneyland, “late” and without a map. We were walking around aimlessly and grumpy, not a good start. But we picked up a map from one of the maintenance people and hopped on a ride and we were all in a much better mood after that.

So how did Isabelle do on the rides? Great! We were worried how she would react. We kept hearing stories from other people about how their kids were scared. But Isabelle did fine. She just sat there and took it all in. I took this picture on her first ride, Alice in Wonderland, as we came out into the light:

I love how her eyes look so wide and full of wonder.

She pretty much enjoyed all the rides though she did have her preferences. Not surprisingly she loved Dumbo. And thanks to a reader, Debbie, who told us about the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland, we got a great tip so that Isabelle could ride two times in a row without waiting in line again. She probably would have happily ridden Dumbo three or four times.

Speaking of lines. There were barely any. We went at a great time of year. I’ve never really given it any thought before but September is a wonderful time to visit Disneyland. It’s the off season. All the school kids are back in school so there aren’t huge crowds of people and plus the weather isn’t insanely hot.

The only thing I didn’t think about is that we went on a weekday. That meant there were no fireworks and Disneyland opened late and closed early. But that was fine. We didn’t miss the hours because we took our time seeing the whole park. With a four day ticket we didn’t feel like we had to rush to see everything.

In fact, in the middle of the day we went back to the hotel for a nap. That’s the way to visit Disneyland, taking your time, nice and slow.

Then you don’t even care if a ride breaks down and you’re stuck on it. Which is what happened on the Roger Rabbit ride. It was really cool though because we got to walk out through the ride along the tracks.

Oh and before I forget. Here’s a picture of us that I’ll be using as our latest monthly family picture. We didn’t take one once we got home. And I’m usually a few days late so a few days early is a nice change. Oh and how awesome that we have family pictures of us on vacation! If Olinda wasn’t with us I don’t know how we would have managed that.

Ok. I think that’s all I can think of for our first day. More tomorrow maybe. If not, here are the rest of the pictures from our trip.

You read that right. Day two! Wow, I can actually remember more from our trip.

We woke up early, 7am early, three hours before the park opened. We had early passes where we could get in one hour before the park opened. So after breakfast we walked over to the monorail. And you know what? There was already a line! But Isabelle didn’t mind. Even lines are fun when you’re two years old.

She ran around and around, laughing, and having a great old time. She didn’t mind the wait at all. And there was a wait. It must have taken at least half an hour to get into Disneyland that day. The line wasn’t super long but it was long enough where we missed the first train. So now we know if we want to go early, just walk.

So what did we do first? Peter Pan. That’s one of my favorites in Fantasyland. Maybe that’s why the line was longer, it was everyone’s favorite too? I love how it feels like you’re flying in the air. That was a surprise for Olinda. Because she hasn’t been to Disneyland in something like 15 years, everything was new to her.

Some things were new for us too. The last time me and Alan went to Disney’s California Adventure, five years ago, they didn’t have the Twilight Zone tower of terror. I don’t like dropping rides but I really wanted to try it. We read that, that one ride was worth the price of admission.

We did the whole baby swap thing on that ride. I think that’s what it’s called. It’s where we all lined up even though Isabelle couldn’t ride. Me and Olinda rode first and then when we got off we took Isabelle. Then one of us could ride again, this time with Alan.

But you know what? I was too scared. It was fun BUT terrifying. I didn’t want to ride it again. On the ride there was a point where I actually screamed in my mind, “when is this going to end?! No more, no more!” I was shaky and my palms were still sweaty from the first time. I didn’t want to experience it again. So poor Alan had to ride by himself.

I wish I had the picture of me and Olinda on the ride. But the thought of taking a picture did not even cross my mind when I was looking at our picture. And the only reason I have a picture of Alan is because someone took their picture and I thought, what a great idea. But by then our picture was off the screens. You would have seen Olinda covering her eyes and me with my eyes shut tightly. And look at Alan, all smiles!

Ok I’m going to stop typing. Isabelle wants me. I’ll just leave it with this picture from Irrigation station in Disney’s California adventure:

Isabelle absolutely loved this. It’s basically water spurting out all over the place unexpectedly. Isabelle probably could have played there all day. She got sopping wet and we ended up buying her a new shirt to wear, a Woody shirt of course.

Ok, so I lied. Two more pictures. Ok. that’s it for real this time. Someone is crawling all over me asking for milk.

I still have Disneyland posts to write but I want to share what we did yesterday. It’s special.

Me and Isabelle made a softie. TOGETHER!! How awesome is that?

She was flipping through a book and saw a drawing of a shark. She said, “mama! Shark!” then “make me a whale.” So I showed her this whale:

And she said, “yay!” Which was perfect because I’ve always wanted to make this whale.

It’s from this Japanese craft book that I got over two years ago, isbn-10: 452904114x (isbn-13: 978-4529041140).

Guess what she wants to make next? This:

She said, “I want make cowboy!!” Ah….she keeps me on my toes.

And HERE are the rest of the projects from the book. There are 59 projects. Scanning them all in was torture. We don’t have a dedicated desk for our scanner and printer. They’re on a shelf. The scanner is at knee level and I have to prop my computer up high and then go down low to scan stuff. Yikes, I think it was easier making the whale.

Pictures of the whale to come another day because hello did you just read what I wrote?? I scanned in freaking how many pages of that book!! I’m pooped.