Last week we took an amazing trip to California for my cousin’s wedding. While we were there we took the time to see a few sites (because, hey, why not?). We flew into Orange County on Thursday morning early, and made our first stop at In-and-Out burger. It was good, but this Texas family still prefers Whataburger! After lunch we checked into our hotel room and settled down for a bit. The time change threw us off a bit since everything there was 2 hours earlier than we were use to. We ate an early dinner at a brewery called Golden Road (it has my favorite beer, the Mellon Cart). I’m not much for brewery’s but Paul is, so it’s become somewhat of a tradition to stop at a local brewery whenever we take a family vacation! The beer was good, the food was good and the weather was COLD! Y’all they turned on the outside heaters while we were there. It was a solid 60 degrees with a cool breeze. We threw some bags around and Hannah played in the sand. It was a perfect start to our family vacation!
The next day we woke up bright and early to make it to the shuttle to take us to DISNEYLAND!! Hannah could not have been more excited (as you can tell from her face). She had no idea what were were about to head off to! Before we left, we watched tons of Disney movies so she would recognize some of the characters she didn’t know.
As soon as we entered through the gates we immediately saw characters stationed around the front part of the park, so of course we hopped in line to grab their autograph and a quick pic! Our first one was Goofy! (This is Hanna’s goofy face) 😉
We then made our way down Main Street to see all of the fun shops and places to eat!
We made our way over to where all of the princesses were! To our surprize there was no line!! I think we might have even been the first ones through that morning! Hannah LOVED this part. We met:
Snow White
Ariel
And Cinderella!
We then made our way out and around to see Aurora’s castle! It was much smaller than I had remembered (definitely smaller than Cinderella’s castle in Florida), but nonetheless Hannah LOVED it!
We even saw Arora outside of her castle in a small passageway just on the other side her bridge! There was NO line for her, and she spent so much time with our little princess. Hannah told her all about how she dressed up like her for halloween, and daddy was prince charming!
We then made our way over to the Buzz Lightyear space cadet blasting ride (you know where there you shoot all of the bad aliens?) It was a BLAST (hehe).
By that time, Henry had about had his fill of rides and needed to take his morning nap, so Paul went to grab some snacks and Hannah and I hopped in a line for the rocket ship ride (looks like the dumbo ride but rocket ships). By the time we made it to the very front, Hannah was completely passed out on my shoulder. SOOOO Paul and I had a nice lunch by ourselves in Tomorrowland! It just so happened that we were able to catch the Jedi in Training show as we ate our lunch! It was great! Nothing Disney does is small. The stage behind these guys raised up out of the ground! It was impressive. 😉
The kiddos woke up and we headed to the other side of the park to see Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore! On our way there we stopped to see a little show from Mary Poppins in front of the castle! It was a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day of fun!
We finally made it over to the 100 acre woods and found Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore! Hannah was beyond thrilled!
Hannah then wanted to ride a few more rides and then headed over to the carousel! Little did we know, the band that played for Mary Poppins earlier in the day had hopped on with us and played the music for our ride!!
I promise she had fun on this. haha
We had a blast on the tea-cups!
And even saw the Pixar Parade!!
I guess when the characters see that you have a camera, they come and pose for you!! That was pretty cool!!
Hannah and Paul made their way to the Dumbo ride! Hannah loved it! She was soo tiny that at some points it looked like Paul was riding by himself! haha
We then went to visit Mickey and Minnie’s house! We didn’t get a chance to meet them since the lines for them (by that time) were about 1 hour, and Hannah didn’t want to wait that long.
As the evening wound down, we made our way to the front of the park and grabbed a pizza to wait for the fireworks!
It’s even magical when the lights come on at night too!
The day, to say the least, was SPECTACULAR!!
The next day we made our way out of Anaheim and down to Dana Point for my cousin’s wedding! The church overlooked the Pacific ocean and was GORGEOUS!
The reception was held near the San Juan Capistrano mission and was also breathtaking! It was a cool 70 degrees in the heat of the day and dropped to the 50’s at night!
You’ll see a lot of pics of my cousins, because well….they are amazing and I love them! 😉
And my brother Luke… He fit in so perfectly in Southern Cali.
Slightly typical. 😉
The next day we spent with family and had a much needed long nap in the afternoon. We spent most of the evening at Dana Point Harbor looking at all of the boats and watching the sunset behind the cliffs. 🙂
Then Luke and I had a mini photoshoot (because, you know, it’s me….)
I was also super impressed with their succulents growing! They were HUGE!
The next day Paul and Luke took surfing lessons at Laguna Beach!
We ate lunch at a Penguin place. (Paul’s favorite animal, so it was fitting!)
That afternoon we made our way over to the San Juan Capistrano Mission! It was BEAUTIFUL!
Our little firecracker didn’t want to put shoes on, so….. hey I needed a pic!
That night we went down to the beach before dinner with family to have a little family photoshoot!
The End! 😉