Disneyland!

All of our kids filled up the jar of "warm fuzzies" - or PUFFLES as we called them - and earned a trip to...

 DISNEYLAND!!

DAY 1:

The shuttle picked us up from our hotel and we were on our way!

 Take 1: Kaitlyn's not too happy about the bunny ears Tayler gave her...

 Take 2... Kaitlyn's happy now... Tayler not so much!

We started the day off with a rapids ride at California adventure - it was SO hot outside and it felt good to get wet!

 N is for Noah - Too bad "CALIFORNIA" doesn't have a T, K, or S for the girls.

 Suzanne & her family (plus a few of Lance's nieces) met us there... and Aunt Suzy wanted to ride the jellyfish ride even if it wasn't with one of the little kids. LOL!

 Tayler & Noah on the jellyfish ride.

OK now this was hilarious to me. A bunch of us were getting on the swings and Noah says "I wanna ride with Quincy"! haha I had to get a picture cuz I was teasing him. There were more times that they chose to go together - I tried to get a picture every time but didn't.

 Tayler, Molly, Kaitlyn, Suzanne, and Ellie on the swings.

I love this pic of my family (minus me!) - in line for the Toy Story ride.

 All the 6-year-old girls - so cute!

This was on the California Screamin ride - Me & Russ in the front, Kaitlyn & Suzanne behind us.

 It looks like Tayler rode this one alone?

Sophie was denied on soooo many rides because of her height. It worked out nice when the little kid rides were close to the "big kid" rides!

Bumper cars / boats / fishes... ? I rode with Ellie on this one and we didn't move the whole time! She was a little confused & I was cracking up!

Here are the love birds again, sitting together on Tower of Terror.

 This was the funnest ride for me! I wanna find my family's pic from 1996 on this same ride in Florida and compare the 2 - I was reminded why back then we rode it over & over again.

Sophie, the 6-year-old baby/diva.

 Guess who Sophie saw as soon as we entered Disneyland?

 All the kids in our big group in front of the castle...

 Sophie the street entertainer!

 Sophie couldn't ride Indiana Jones so her and I hit up the Jungle Cruise instead...

 Kaitlyn & Noah holding hands as we walked through the Space Mountain line.

 Tayler's face is the best! This is on Space Mountain.

 Kaitlyn, Noah, and Russ all decided to bust some moves for the camera this time around. That became one of the most entertaining things we did - to plan what we'd do for the picture on each ride!

 California Adventure's "World of Color" show was really good! This is at the end of the night on our first day there. We were so exhausted!

 DAY 2:
I woke up to find that Sophie climbed in bed with her older sisters. (I don't know why I love taking pics of people sleeping so much!)



Day 2 started off nice when we realized Sophie was tall enough to ride the Matterhorn. She was so happy!

 Some people were brave enough to get on the teacups... (Ellie, Noah, Suzanne)

 Noah in Toon Town...

(Noah, Tayler, and Sophie on the boat in Toon Town)

I asked Russ to hold my sunglasses for me - then the next time I looked at him something about him looked a little odd.

I don't know if anybody liked Autopia as much as I did. The first time I rode with Quincy, and she steered but I controlled the gas pedal. We kept bumping Kaitlyn in front of us & Quincy was cracking up - which made it so funny! The second time I rode with Noah - and I again had control of the gas pedal. The first few times I bumped the car in front of us, he would say "Mom, it says no bumping" as he pointed to the picture of "no bumping". Oops! The car seemed out of control from his steering and he couldn't stop his rolling laugh. So fun!

My favorite times were when our whole family could go on rides together. Here are all the kids in front of Russ & I on the Matterhorn.

This picture was really fun - we planned to make "funny faces" - Russ and Noah's are the best!

We stayed at the parks until after midnight when they were closing. The best moment that day might have been when we got on Tower of Terror one last time and somehow got Sophie on with us! I think it was so late in the day that the workers became more relaxed about it or something. Too bad I don't have a picture of it :(

DAY 3:

For our last day of the vacation we relaxed a little and drove toward the beach. We went to the Balboa Fun Zone and took a harbor cruise. This was so cool - we saw a lot of celebrity homes - I didn't think to get my camera out until the end of the tour so I missed taking a lot of good pics - but this one was so pretty - it's George Cloony's home.

Some of the other pretty homes belonged to Mark McGuire, Vanna White, and my favorite was John Wayne's old home. The house was so pretty with a beautiful garden in front of it. This home below is owned by the person who started Yahoo!

We also hit up the beach as the kids requested - it was so cold out there!

We had so much fun. This was our first big family vacation with all of us together and it was a total success! I wrote down everyone's favorite memory of the trip -

Russ: the harbor cruise & football on the beach

Shalae: when we all got to go on a ride together

Tayler: Sneaking Sophie on Tower of Terror & the harbor cruise

Kaitlyn: buying Piglet, riding all the roller coasters - Indiana Jones was probably her favorite

Noah: Riding Space Mountain & Thunder Mountain Railroad

Sophie: Tower of Terror, Matterhorn, Toy Story, Toon Town, "all the rides"