I've been putting off putting up our California vacation pictures, since there were so many, and it was such a full trip, but I figured I should start off with the biggest: Disneyland.Disney was fabulous - it was three days of crazy fun, and although we were VERY tired when it was all over, it was worthwhile. Or, at least it feels worthwhile now, from the safe distance of 3 weeks away.... :-)
We didn't go three days in a row, although it was close: we went on a Tuesday and a Wednesday, then took off Thursday, and went back Friday mid-day, planning to stay late for fireworks that night. We did it that way so that Grammy, PaPaw and NeeNee could be there as much as possible - (they came up after work on Friday and joined us for the evening and the late night)
I'm going to just kinda put it all together here, and generalize it. No need to give you a blow by blow description of each day, I figure. :-)
The favorite ride, by far, was of course the one we have NO pictures of: the Buzz Lightyear ride, AstroBlasters. It was the only ride we went on every single day we were there.
We did, however, get a picture of the kids with the all around favorite character, Pluto:
Ryan also got a chance to see his favorite show, but in real life:
you can see how rapt he was watching them. He just kept saying "Little Einsteins! Rocket Ship!" over and over.
And, unbelievably, Nathan and Ben got to see some Star Wars stuff as well, and Ben was even picked to be a part of the "Jedi Training Academy" - he loved it, of course. Nathan was of course too shy to volunteer.
Of course, Darth Vader shows up to crash the party...
And then Darth Maul (shhh... don't tell the continuity experts over at LucasFilms!)
Ben got to fight - and of course defeat - Darth Maul, and then they sent them away. Ben was rightly proud of his accomplishment, and the only kid to show it. :-)
Of course, we didn't just see shows - we also posed at the letters inviting us into California Adventure! :-)
And we ate ice cream... in front of the Haunted Mansion, no less!
And we rode the train...
And we visited Tarzan's Tree House, which when I was young was the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House - I'll admit, this one is cooler. :-)
Of course, we also went on rides, and loads of them!
This is us on the Ferris Wheel at California Adventure - Ben, Nathan and I went on a swinging car that moved from the center of the wheel to the outside of the wheel as you went around - it was stomach-dropping!
Stephen, Raylene & Ryan all wimped out and went on the stationary cars that just went around like a normal Ferris Wheel.
Stephen wimped out on the Carousel as well... something about the turning round and round making him nauseous? Double Wimp.
To his credit, though, Stephen did go on the California Screamin' roller coaster with the kids. 
Raylene and I went later, after passing off Ryan...
Tower of Terror was one of my favorites... while we went on with Ben and Nathan, Raylene hung out with Ryan
check out the pic of us on the ride:
We even went on the weird, slightly psycho, Winnie the Pooh ride. It was all under black light, and I felt like it would have made more sense if I were slightly stoned... but the kids seemed to like it well enough, and we all fit in one cart! :-)
One thing we started to notice was that Nathan always has the same face when he's nervous/scared about a ride - it's kind of a flat face, almost devoid of emotion - go back up and look at Nathan in some of the pics, and you'll see it (especially the roller coaster and Tower of Terror). Here it is, a bit closer:
As I said before, we all stayed for the fireworks on friday night, and they were spectacular, as all things disney are, but by the time they were over, the kids were wiped out:
I'll leave you with this picture of my crazy monkeys trying to escape...
Needless to say, we all had fun. :-)
