A few days after Christmas we headed down to California with Mark's sister Cami and her family. We stayed in awesome Dana Point and hung out at Disneyland and the beach. It was such fun trip and so hard to come back to Utah! I have never understood why people pay so much and put up with so much just to live in California...well, staying there in January has shown me exactly why!!! We had 70-80 degree perfect weather every single day we were there. Driving down in a snow storm really helped us appreciate it! It was amazing to walk out the door every morning in t-shirts and see sunshine when you are so used to freezing temperatures and snow.
We stayed at a condo right across the street from the beach. It was fun to all stay together - the cousins all slept together in the living room (except for Wyatt, too bad for us!), and Jaxson LOVED that. I don't know what he loved more - being in California or being with his cousins all day long! Disneyland was a blast - we had free two-day park hopper passes (we got them last year because a bunch of rides were broken the day we were there). Two days, all day - open to close. That is almost enough to kill a person! It was so, so fun though. Here is a picture overload of our trip:
This picture just about says it all...Jaxson is having so much fun at the beach that he is about to lose his pants!
On a walk down the beach while grouchy Wyatt took a nap on a blanket (don't worry, there were plenty of seagulls to watch over him...and his uncle Brett).
Wyatt was so excited when we first got there. He ran down to the water and was splashing in the waves...until a kind of big one took him by surprise and knocked him on his butt. Then he was MAD. He honestly would not get off of the blanket the rest of the day - this kid can hold a grudge!
He fell asleep on my lap and took a pretty good nap.
Now he is awake and holding a toy and a serious grudge against the beach in general and will not get up or get off the blanket. I'm telling you, he was ticked!
On Sunday we went to sacrament meeting (at a Spanish ward - oops!) and then down to the pier. We let the kids run around and play for a while - this is Jax and his twinner cousins, Makenna and McKay (don't you love his hat?). We all played red rover for a while, and I am not kidding, cars were slowing down to watch like "wow...what is this...children playing?" This was in a pretty wealthy area, and there were hardly any kids anywhere. 5 kids all together was a novelty there!
Welcome to Disneyland!!! We bought Jaxson that hat hoping it would give him an extra half in on some of the rides...didn't work. They made him take it off - Disney workers are so dang thorough! He was so, SO sad not to get to ride Splash Mountain, but the worker gave him two fast passes for any ride in the park, and also a pass to go to the front of the line on Splash Mountain as soon as he is tall enough. That is why Disneyland is the happiest place on earth and Lagoon is not...remember that mean lady who made him cry?
Attempted family shot in Toon Town...that is the best one we could get :)
Awesome sunset while waiting in line for Small World. Not a huge fan of small world in general, but it was really cool all decked out for Christmas. That was Wyatt's favorite ride, and McKay's!
Wyatt LOVED the glasses on Toy Story Mania and kept them on through the whole ride. Have you been on this one? Holy cow, it is so fun.
Wyatt riding with his Aunt Cami. Mark and I secretly wanted her to take him so we could focus on the game and get as many points as we could...
Brothers on the ferris wheel. I hate ferris wheels. It turns out so did they. They didn't hate it actually, but that is one of those things that looks really cool when you are a kid and then turns out to be kind of lame.
On a ride (small world, maybe?)
Yep, Small World. He loved this ride, but I think all those little people kind of freaked him out.
I LOVE this picture. Jaxson was so excited to ride Peter Pan with McKay and Connor (and Brett!). He talked about it nonstop. And HOLY COW that Disneyland worker is SUPER EXCITED, too. Geez, could he be any more annoyed that I am taking this picture?!
Grandma's piano students hard at work, even in Toon Town.
Driving Goofy's car.
Trying to escape while waiting in line to see Mickey Mouse. We finally just bagged it and left through the nearest exit. They saw him last year, and it was a REALLY long line. And Wyatt probably would have freaked out worse than when he saw Santa (hence the escape attempt).
Mr. Muscles
We got lucky and didn't have to wait in much of a line for Sully. This is Wyatt's favorite movie right now, but it turns out we were right not to wait in the Mickey line...he is like get me AWAY from this hairy freak.
Jaxson LOVED him though.
This is a picture of Wyatt after he played in a puddle for half an hour. Look at that smile. It turns out we didn't need to take him to Disneyland afterall, just needed to find him a good size puddle to splash in. Seriously, that is the most fun he had all day.
P.S. Right after that, we saw Barry Bonds. He is a smaller guy than you would think (must be off the roids'?) Mark wanted to go up and talk to him, but he moved us along quickly after I said something about not being impressed with a cheater, home run king ASTERISK, or something like that. Nobody else around us even realized who he was, and I am sorry Mark, but he is not that awesome and I would have told him so if you had let me. Just kidding, I wouldn't have really dared to.
Cute cousins - these two were good little buddies this trip, and Jaxson wanted to be by Mickey's side the entire time.
On the Bug's Life Ride.
The Christmas decorations were AWESOME. The whole park was decked out, but my favorite part was the castle. The picture doesn't show anywhere near how cool it looked!
Same with the lights on Small World. The whole outside was covered, but our camera doesn't show it very well. Look at that tired boy - he fell asleep around 10 and stayed that way, lucky for us!!
Jaxson was a trooper and was running around full speed until midnight when told him we were going on ONE last ride and he was like "What?! WHY?" And promised he wasn't tired...this is him about 5 minutes later just as we are walking out of the park. It took him less than 5 minutes to totally zonk out on Mark's shoulders. We were SO exhausted but isn't Disneyland tired the best kind of tired?
Thanks for the great trip Cami and Brett - we can't wait until next year!!
