Disneyland

Well I am finally ready to tell you (and show you) all about our Disneyland trip. We left Josh and Rhen home and headed off for a weekend of fun. Friday morning Rease woke up to this letter by her breakfast plates along with 5 princesses to take on her trip...

Caleb, Hayley, Rease and I loaded into the Element along with a whole lot of luggage, treats and movies for the ride. Caleb and Rease had a good time together in the back.

Then when we switched drivers, Rease and I caught up on our sleep.

We made lots of pitstops along the way. Rease had just officially been potty-trained a few days before our trip so I wasn't sure how exactly to work it while we drove for 12 hours. So before we left I put a diaper on her and figured she would just use that for the trip and we would go from there. Well, we finally made our first stop about 3 hours down the road and she said she needed to go potty. Turns out she hadn't gone in her diaper at all and was just waiting for us to stop at a bathroom. We didn't make it another 3 hours before she had to stop, it was more like every 45 minutes from there on out. But hey we made it the whole way without an accident and without us ruining our good potty-training we worked so hard on the weeks beforehand.

One of our pitstops was in St. George. We had to stop and eat at our favorite place Nielson's Frozen Custard. Justin and Steph were there for a softball tournament so they met us for lunch.

Rease showed off her princesses to everyone. Somehow she figured out that she could take the fins off Arial and soon they were off and lost. Arial spent all her time at Disneyland in just her seashells and underwear.

Tired again - Rease and Caleb took the chance for a quick nap.

We finally made it to Anaheim and stayed with Uncle Mike. We were exhausted from driving all day, but of course we couldn't wait to get to...

Early Saturday morning we made it to the park. It was so fun to see it all decked out in Halloween. Pumpkins everywhere and all the characters dressed in halloween outfits.

This is right at the entrance...

Rease loved the princess castle...

and was so excited to be there as you can see by this awesome face!

One of the first things we did was go to the 3D Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie. What a mistake. I'm not sure why I didn't think that she would get scared - afterall this is Rease we're talking about. She is a scaredy cat. Anyway, as soon as the first 3D figure came at our face, she had enough. Crying and fighting until I took her out. The rest of the day she was a little bit on edge so I had to really think about what kinds of things we did before we actually did them.

Rease loved Toon Town. Who wouldn't? It's darling!

I was a little nervous that she wouldn't like the Nemo submarine after the 3D movie episode. But she actually really loved it and didn't get too scared.

Now Dumbo, that's a good ride. Rease couldn't get enough and I actually liked it too. We rode this plenty of times. One of the many times we stood in line for this ride, Rease got her head stuck in the bars. One minute we were just standing there then all of a sudden she started screaming. I looked down and sure enough, her big noggin was stuck. I was a little panicked for a second, but then we all calmed down and were able to get her head out without too much problem. I mean, it went in so it must be able to get out too, right? Anyway, after she was free we talked about what happened and I said "Rease you're head got stuck just like Bolt's head did!" She loved that of course and after that kept telling people she was like Bolt. After it was all said and done I wished I would've taken a picture of it. But the memory remains.

I think we rode the carousel more times than any other ride. She kept saying that she wanted to ride the horsies. We spent a lot of time in Fantasyland.

Peter Pan. This was actually one of the longest lines we stood in the whole time we were there (besides the princess line.) Fun, but not sure I would stand in the 45 minute line again.

Loved the cars!

I made Rease take a nap in the afternoon. It only lasted about 30 minutes, but better than nothing.

Caleb wearing Rease's Minnie ears.

We made our way to California Adventure and had a fun time there too...

The Pixar parade was darling! Rease once again got a little scared but did okay with all the large characters and the water they kept squirting. She knew most of the characters too so that was really fun for her.

Waiting for It's a Small World.

The best part about our time in Disneyland was seeing the characters and Rease loved talking to them and giving them hugs.

And she couldn't get enough of the princesses. We waited in line for an hour and a half to see these pretty ladies - but it was fun and Rease is still talking about how she saw Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle and Snow White.

As we were leaving the park Hayley and Caleb had Rease wave and say goodbye to everyone and everything. "Goodbye princesses." "Goodbye horsies." "Goodbye rides."

Rease is still saying to me, "Go to Disneyland again soon." Okay!

Thanks to Uncle Mike for letting us stay with him and for coming along with us! We had such a fabulous time!

One other quick story. We left Disneyland Monday night around 8:00 and decided to just jump in our car and drive through the night so we could get home. I drove until we got to Mesquite. When we got just past Las Vegas all of a sudden I noticed that there was a cop in my rearview mirror pulling me over. Remember it's the middle of the night and I really wasn't speeding at all so I couldn't figure out why I was getting pulled over. So I stopped and he came to the passenger window. He asked for my license and registration and then asked me to get out of the car and follow him. Weird, but I followed him. So we went behind my car and in front of his cop car which had the blasting lights on right in my face. He started asking me a bunch of questions like where we were coming from, why we took the trip, who was with me, where my husband was, etc. I thought it was so bizarre and was actually getting pretty nervous about it. He then said that he pulled me over because I was speeding. 82 in a 75 mph zone. What the heck? That's barely speeding! Then he told me to wait there and he was going to go and talk with the others in the car and make sure our stories matched. What story? By then I was scared and actually expected someone to jump out of his car and grab me. It was freaky. Anyway, apparantly he felt like our stories matched because he came back and handed me my license and registration and told me that he was just giving me a warning. Thanks for scaring the pants of me officer - have a good night! Josh told me later that they were probably checking for drugs, but oh man was I nervous about the whole ordeal. We made it home safe after that.