Exhaustathon. Day 1.

*This report tends to go into little details that may seem trivial, but my memory is terrible, and this in my only chance to catch it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. (No, we are not talking about you, Grandma Cazier.)

Really, we should mention the night before we entered the park, because there was some foreshadowing. I mean, you can't have a vacation and have everything go off without a hitch, right? At least, I've never seen it happen.

We all convened at Millie's Family Restaurant. (Which you can all leave off your to-do list. Not so hot, if you ask me.) The gang included our three girls, me, Tyler, my parents, sister, and nephew, and Tyler's mom. Yep, we got both Grandma's there, how cool is that for the girls' first trip to Disneyland? If you count Tim as an adult, which he practically is, that made it 7 adults to 3 kids. I like those odds.

We lumped all the kids at one table and put Tim in charge (thanks again) so that the adults could form a game plan. I loved when Tyler leaned over to ask Ivory if she was ready to order, she gave him this condescending look and holding up her menu said, "I can't read, you dummy!" What a little sass.

Then Vicki took a bite of bacon and broke her bridge that holds her front teeth in place. That can't be a good omen. But let it be said that she was a trooper. She didn't actually lose her teeth until the second evening, and that didn't slow her down the third day. (It was only three teeth and there will be no pictures because I think I would be on rocky ground if I put one on here.)

We all went back to the hotel and tried to get a good night's sleep knowing the excitement the next day held. (After we watched the fireworks that is—we had a perfect view from our hotel window.)

The morning dawned and we were ready to roll. Here are the girls:

Yes, I dressed them the same on purpose. They wore those blue shirts EVERY. DAY. And I would do it again. It was so much easier to find them, and keep track of them. Granted, you still have to count, but I highly recommend this method to parents of multiple children. This is the my-children-were-last-seen-wearing-this picture to show to Disneyland Security just in case we lost any children. I won't keep you in suspense...no one went missing, unless you count Grandma who kept motoring off, but that wasn't until day 3.


We waited for the shuttle in the morning, but after its slow arrival, we walked the rest of the time. Our hotel was about 20 minutes away, walking. Very doable. And half the time, we beat the shuttle to the park. Although, I won't lie; after you spend all day walking, and then you have to walk some more, it is less exciting— but cheaper. We got used to this walk.

We started in Fantasyland because that seemed like a good place to dip our toes in the water.

The girls did all the small rides, and choose a new partner each time. It was cute to see them jump from Grandma to aunt to parent. We pulled on the sword to no avail.

Then it was time for the Matterhorn. We had to figure out right away if we had roller coaster kids or not. We do. They all loved it. I think Vicki screamed the most, but that was pretty normal the whole trip.

The girls were excited when they saw Disney characters walking about, but they didn't feel any need to stand with them or get autographs. But perhaps that is because we had them stand by Peter first. He was a little weird to say the least. Maybe it was his eyebrows, or the tights, or maybe it was because he spent too much time around fairies. Oh yeah, and Ivory wouldn't even go near him.

We went on "it's a small world" which was really fun since they added in a lot of Disney Characters. That was a favorite of the kids. And then we dashed over to Splash Mountain. As usual, my mom got soaked. We have a joke in the family that water is attracted to her. If it is possible to get wet, she will, more than anyone else. We all had a good spritzing, but mom came off drenched. Makes me laugh every time.

At this point, we split off from the group for a moment to go see a friend in Downtown Disney. We were supposed to go the beach with Brenna, but stuff came up and she was nice enough to come stop at the park to see us. I grew up with Brenna and I love her.

She is so beautiful and kind hearted. I wish I lived closer. She has three beautiful girls of her own. Here are all the beauties.

Can you tell that Ivory is about done? This is when we should have taken her back for a nap. We didn't. But we revived her with a Jamba Juice and trudged on.

We didn't take many pictures on the rides, but the kids did walk through Tarzan's Treehouse and Tyler nabbed a shot here and there. 

The evening was kind of a blur. I know that we did go back to the hotel for dinner. Tricia was kind enough to let us borrow a portable burner so we could make some real meals instead of eating everything cold. Tyler was impressed enough to take a picture. It is Rice-a-Roni (w/hamburger), cherries, and rolls with butter.

 
We went back to the park in the evening, with Ivory falling asleep every time it was her turn in the stroller. We went Soarin' Over California with just enough time to see the World of Color production. Meh...I wasn't that impressed. But that could be because everyone stood and I am a head shorter than the average Joe. Add Robyn to my shoulders, and it was a looooong production. The fountains were cool, but I didn't see much of the animation projected on the water.

Finally it was time to head home. We had three very tired children and two exhausted parents; and so we did the best we could. June was zonked out in the stroller, someone carried Ivory, and I sat Robyn on top of the stroller. Just as we were leaving the park, I looked down to the see the wheels bowed out at a bag angle. I guess an eight and seven year old riding at once was more than it could handle. I reached to unload Robyn, but it was too late—the wheel popped off, not to go on again. So then, we walked the 20 minutes to the hotel, carrying the stroller.

Although the first day ended with a glitch, everyone was still happy and no one argued about which bed they slept in, or people stealing covers...they were all sound asleep, dreamin' of Big Thunder Mountain.