Disneyland Day 1 (and the drive down)

Lets start back at the beginning of our trip. Our drive down (not very many pictures) and day 1.

I have to admit I was not in the picture taking mood this trip. Especially the first day. It was just all so exciting and I just wanted to see everything 'not through a camera.' It's funny that that was the case because I was really thinking before we left that I'd love to get some live video action too. We ended up not even taking out the video camera at all.

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning (Nov. 3) to be out of the house by 6am because we had a planned stop at a place that would close before we got there if we didn't get out earlier. Our planned stop was a visit to the National Yo-Yo Museum in Chico, CA. We were looking to stop about halfway to stay for the night, and that looked like a fun/different thing to do.

A very sleepy and excited boy (even though this face looks very concerned). We were all excited to get going to CA.

We made it out of the house about 6:45, I think, and we made it to Chico, CA sometime in the afternoon. We almost didn't find the museum because it's part of this amazing toy store, but we found it, and it was pretty cool. Cute little town too. What's ironic is that little did we know that Chico would be the place of refuge for many people fleeing the fire in just a few short days. So glad we hadn't plan to be there on the way back home. Unfortunately the Yo-Yo museum was part of my "I don't feel like taking pictures" mode so we have no proof that we were actually there. You'll have to take my word for it.

Lunch at in-n-out before we left Oregon.

We arrived at our Disneyland hotel on Sunday afternoon. We stayed at the Clementine Inn and Suites. It was a nice place, and the room was so spacious. It even had a kitchen. We settled in on Sunday night to get ready for our first day at Disney on Monday morning. We planned to open the place up at 8 am, so we headed down to breakfast bright and early as soon as everyone was dressed and ready to go.

Aric enjoying his cup of hot cocoa after breakfast. Excited and ready for the day at Disneyland.

Our hotel included breakfast every morning so that's always nice to not have to worry about that expense, or taking time to go find something.

We finally made it to Disney! One of our first rides was the monorail. I took my camera out because I knew I would regret not getting any pictures of our first rides.

The Monorail

Being at Disneyland was amazing and fun, but also exhausting and sometimes boring (waiting in all the lines). Our feet hurt everyday at the end of the day, but it was so worth it. We had some fun bonding happening all the time.

Alex waiting in line for a ride. The beautiful sunshine too!

The Haunted Mansion was all decorated for Halloween/Christmas with The Nightmare Before Christmas theme. It was so neat. I'm not a big fan of spooky, but I thought this was really well done.

We also rode the train around several times. This was one of the views. There were some decorations going up for Christmas. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the final grand opening of the Christmas celebration because it wasn't until Friday.

Another line. This was for the Pirates of the Carribbean ride. We got lucky for this ride and caught it when it wasn't too busy yet.

We headed over to California Adventure for the afternoon.

The sunset was already approaching on our first day at Disneyland. Shortly after this picture things kind of went downhill, and we didn't end up staying until it closed. Sickness sent us home early that night.

Boys in front of the ferris wheel and the Incredicoaster at California Adventure park.

One more picture on our way out...

That was the end of day 1. There's so much I didn't get pictures of. I think I took a lot more of day 2 and day 3. We did close the park on those days, and I don't think I could have possibly walked around Disney another day my feet hurt so much. We did try to get a lot in though.