We're Back!

Warning: Tons of pictures and quite possibly the longest post I've ever done!! What a week we had in Disneyland! It was soo much fun! First off, I'd like to give yet another shout out to my mom who turned the big 50 last Saturday-Happy Birthday Mom!! Of course we went on this fun excursion for her 50th (she LOVES Dland) and wanted her family to be there with her. We left Tuesday morning and got back Saturday night. My dad travels a lot so he was able to upgrade our tickets to first class on the plane rides! It was wonderful having the space and we basically took up half of first class with our family! Lily did WONDERFUL the entire time! I'm so blessed to have an easy going baby. She was such a little trooper with everything we did. Never did she do any crying fits-just when she was tired. So instead of pushing her to do more we just went back to the hotel and took naps. My parents stayed at the Grand California Hotel that's attached to California Adventure (it's across from Dland) and my brother, sister, and us stayed a couple blocks away. Anyway, we just used my parents room for Lily to nap in since it was right there! Such a treat! After arriving in California us girls (minus Lily of course) went to this amazing nail salon and got pedicures. This place is stinking cheap for what you get! I wish they were where we are! Anyway, my mom treated my sister and I and it was wonderful. After that we just settled into our hotel. The rest of the week we were in Dland. Of course it had to RAIN Thurs. afternoon and Fri. morning! California is not supposed to rain-EVER! But we made the most out of it and got soaked while riding the water ride 5 times! We just stayed on and on since no one was in line! (Lily was not with us, don't worry. She was napping and my dad was with her!) Then we were so cold after riding it that we jumped in the hot tub at my parents' hotel in our CLOTHES! AJ even wore his socks in it! Our clothes were already wet so no sense in going to change into our swimsuits. Plus, no one was there so we didn't get in trouble. I wish we got a picture of it but we didn't!

In the lobby of the Grand California waiting to go into the park on the first day! Lily is excited!

Me and the hubby

Me and my beautiful sister Leandra

And my beautiful mom on her scooter! As you know she had knee surgery two weeks ago and there would be no way she'd be able to walk around Dland for 5 days on her hurt knee with her cane. So she rented a scooter and it was wonderful. She felt great and Lily loved riding on it with her :) She did well driving it and only had a few crashes! :)

I'm going backwards a bit with the pictures but they go with the story I'm telling. Lily fell asleep as we were running in the poring rain from Dland to the hotel. The only wet part on her was her blanket. She was tired! And I love a sleeping baby!

This is the before picture (no after picture!) of us from being outside trying to get to the hotel from Dland. After we took this we immediately went on the water ride at California Adventure. We were way more soaked later! Back to the first day in the park, we (the girls) got Dland hats to wear.

My mom chose these sparkly Mickey ears and wore them the whole week. It was quite cute!

Lily trying on her Nana's ears. We didn't buy any for her because she immediately took them off. But she kept them on long enough for us to take a picture.

Lily also got some walking time in with her daddy. They have this giant ball in one of the lands at DLand that has water pouring over it. It's definitely a kids attraction. Lily loves balls right now and whenever she sees them freaks out and points and says "the ball". It's really cute. So here she is walking to her ball.

And with my mom's scooter we were able to go to the front of the lines! It was amazing. We all couldn't ride together because of Lily, so here we are waiting until the rest of the family gets off Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's my favorite ride and it's the best at night! See, we did have sunny weather part of the time! This was actually the same day it poured-crazy!

Lily even got to go on some of the rides! She loved them-even though she's not smiling in this picture. This is on the Winnie the Pooh ride.

And on the carousel. She loved it-that's her excited face! It's the same look when she sees balloons or balls or dogs.

She loved it!

This is Main Street in Dland right as you walk in. They have fun shops and old fashioned ice cream parlors, buggy rides, double decker buses, etc. It's a magical place! :)

Another storefront on Main Street-notice the icky color of the sky!

And in front of Cinderella's Castle. OK, I know you're all wondering "what the heck is that about?" It's quite a funny story. First of all, a little history behind it. Last Christmas we took a family picture (just us kids and Lily) for my mom's Christmas letter. Well, she wasn't there when we took it. She's got like 20 Christmas sweaters/vests that she wears every Christmas season. And we're mean and we kinda make fun of her-she's got a good spirit! So in that picture we took we wore her Christmas sweaters. She of course didn't know we were doing it until we showed it to her and she loved it and sent it out! People to this day laugh at it-especially at AJ because he was wearing my mom's Christmas turtleneck and sweater! Back to this picture, we thought it'd be funny to sneak out my mom's Christmas vests (we were in sunny California so vests made more sense than sweaters!) and made her and my dad go do a ride while we took a picture! FUNNY! Even Lily had one that I bought for her to wear this Christmas season, but as you can see it fits her great now so I'm sure it won't by the winter time! Oh well. Also, we gave my mom little gifts each day of the trip for her to open since it was her birthday week. And we bought a professional picture of us in the sweaters and put it in a mickey frame and that was a gift for one of the days. She loved it! And it was fun to do!

Joel being goofy and posing!

And my silly husband. I think he's taking it a bit far but that's what he does! :)

And of course he has to roll up his sleeves! Check out the farmer's tan!

This is Toontown. A fun place for the kiddos.

We waited in line for Lily to see Minnie. I wasn't sure how she'd react, but Minnie was very calm and gently waved her hands toward Lily. Finally she leaned in and Lily grabbed her nose! She was fascinated by it! She never cried either thank goodness!

The girls!

And she had to grab the nose one more time!

Lily and her grandpa in Mickey's house. You can kinda see my dad's shirt-it says Cindy is 50. We surprised my mom with all of us-even Lily-wearing these shirts one of the days we were there. Unfortunately, I don't have a pic. of us all in them, but my mom does and we're with Mickey. And of course the day we wore them it rained so we all had our jackets on! Oh well!

"A" is for Acker! Standing in front of California Adventure.

My mom ended up buying a poncho so we could put it over Lily and her stroller for when it rained. It sure helped! And she actually loved it!

On another ride in C-A. Lily doesn't look happy but she did like it. We were riding on a giant caterpillar (from the movie "Bugs Life") and on this ride they had giant things that the caterpillar ate. Well, at one point there was a half eaten giant apple and Lily points to it and says "ball"!! Too cute.

And with a character from Bugs Life. Lily didn't love him nearly as much as she loved Minnie!

Cinderella's Castle at night! Dland is the most fun when it's dark because there are lights everywhere! We were waiting for the fireworks show to start.

Lily sleeping in her stroller! My camera is not good at taking night pictures. And basically right after I took this (it had a giant flash!) she woke up. I know, I'm a terrible mom. But not even 5 min. later did the fireworks start and she would've woken up anyway because they were LOUD! She was great during it too and just stared at those fireworks.

And Lily is WALKING!! So, she's been walking for a while now-taking like 6-1o steps on her own. I haven't blogged about it because I personally don't call that walking-just taking steps. As we're waiting in the airport to come home I leave to go get coffee at Starbucks with my sister and come back and she's walking towards me! Are you kidding me?! I missed it! She took like 20 steps I guess-all over the place. By herself! Look at how she's just standing there like it's no big deal. Unbelievable. The funny thing is she doesn't do it on her own account. We literally have to put her on the floor and walk a bit away, crouch down and say "come here!" She always does it too. But we have yet to see her stand up and walk. But we're for sure getting close! YAY! And she's only 15 months! :)

On the ride to come back home and all tuckered out! She loves her baby. And I promise you every time she holds her baby she always sucks on the inside of her bottom lip. It's like a binky to her I guess. She knows it's time to calm down and go to sleep! WOW. What an amazing trip and I'm sad it's over. We've been looking forward to this trip for over a year now! I wish we would've gone this week because it's supposed to be nice in California! Lily did great, the family did great, it was a TON of FUN! I always hate it when trips like this are over-it's such a let down! But now I get to look forward to my sister-in-laws wedding in 2 months! You'll be seeing lots of pictures from upcoming showers and her bachelorette party in a couple weeks! Sorry for such a long post too! And I didn't even put up all the pictures! :)