Do You Believe In Magic?

We do!!! We just spend a wonderful week in Disneyland with the whole family. As you can see above as we relax in the hotel waiting for the fun to start, we were ready to go.

We left Saturday to catch our 2:00 flight to Long Beach, we probably should have gotten an earlier flight, as waiting until 12:00 to leave was pure torture for Jake, but it worked out well. Rob and I were a bit leary, and a bit nauseous riding on the small Delta Connection flights that go into Long Beach, but Jake thought the flight was a lot of fun (it was really turbulent). We arrived in Long Beach and stopped to pick up our rental car, to make a long story that involved pre-booking on Hotwire, GPS systems, child safety seats, and "how about an upgrade", we found ourselves leaving the airport in style, driving a Hummer for our family vacation. We complained a lot about spending the extra money, but really we enjoyed our week going high style, and Jake called the car "awesome".

We got to our hotel in Long Beach safely after only a small detour as we learned to use the GPS, and then had dinner at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co. The restaurant was a lot of fun, and as Rob has seen Forrest Gump lot's of time (it's one of his favorite movies) he was a wiz at the quiz the waitress gave us. After dinner it was off to bed so we could wake up early for Disneyland. We got to Disneyland Sunday morning as soon as it opened at 10:00, and it was pretty clear that Sunday was going to be a busy day. We only were able to get onto 3 rides (Nemo, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and Star Tours) before it was time for lunch, and time to check into our hotel for most of the week. Just as we checked in mom called to let us know that everyone had arrived safely and after settling in we were all going to meet for dinner, and the evening at Disneyland. We headed back over to Disneyland, had a quick dinner there, and then went on a few rides, although it was still busy, we were able to hit a few fun rides (Pirates, Winnie the Pooh, and back to Nemo). The plan was to stay until 10:00 to watch the fireworks, but when Jake fell asleep in line for Nemo, we figured it was probably time to call it a night.

Jake decided he was hungry halfway back to the hotel, and we stopped at McDonald's for some chcken nuggets that he managed to eat a couple of before falling asleep again.

We woke up bright and early Monday, had breakfast near our hotel, and then headed to California Adventure for day 2 of fun. We all met at the Soaring over California ride, which turned out to be one of our very favorites (before the rip was over we went on it about 4 times), I loved the feeling of flying as well as the smells on the ride that made it seem so real. After Soaring we all headed over to Bug's Land to let the kids ride a few rides, and have some fun.

After Bug's Land we headed into the Hollywood area of California Adventure. There were hardly any people there and we were getting on and off rides as a quick pace, and even though we had planned to see Aladdin on Wednesday, we saw there was no line for a show starting in 10 minutes so we decided to go ahead and see that. Jake being my little musical and Broadway guy absolutely loved it. After the show, it was lunch time, half of us decided to go get hamburgers at the diner, but we decided we wanted to head to Downtown Disney and enjoy some New Orleans food. We finished lunch just in time for Rob to make it back to the hotel for a rest and for Jake and I to catch the High School Musical performance. Jake is a huge High School Musical fan, so not only did we catch the show once, but we followed it to the next spot and saw it again, and got Jake a High School Musical shirt that he wanted to wear the rest of the day. We hooked back up with everyone on the Pier and did some rides there for the rest of the afternoon (although Jake was pretty sad he wasn't tall enough to ride on the big roller coaster). Rob, Jake, Scott, Ryan, Lexie, Ruby, and I decided to brave the river run ride, and despite our panic at possibly getting too wet, it was a pretty mild ride, but with lots of laughter. We also had the chance to see Uncle Ryan interviewed by the turtle from Nemo (I forget his name) which Jake thought was about the funniest thing he had ever seen.

California Adventure closed at 6:00 so we decided to all meet for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. They were exceptionally nice to accomodate all 20+ members of our party, and we had a wonderful dinner altogether. It was a fabulous day

Tuesday we were back at the Magic Kingdom for early admittance day. We all headed over to meet at Finding Nemo, this was our 3rd time on the ride, but Jake loved it just as much as the first couple of times. We all went together to do some more rides, took turns watching the kids so all the adults could go on Indiana Jones. Jake, Collin, and Cade even managed to convince me to climb up the Tarzan Treehouse with them. We rode on Pirates, Splash Mountain, and again on Winned the Pooh, and drooled at the Pooh Corner candy store making plans for getting treats before the parade later that night.

Once again Rob, Jake and I snuck away for lunch (we're not big fans of park food when there are good restaurants close by, and let's face it the food is the highlight for Rob and I), today we went to the Rainforest Cafe, and there was on waiting line (for the first time) so we got right in (it was a bit disappointing after hearing so much about it, but Jake liked it). On the way back we decided to do a quick stop in California Adventure to do Soaring over California, and the Tower of Terror that we had missed the day before (what with Jake having to watch High School Musical twice). Then we headed back to meet everyone at Disneyland, where we rode Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, and then headed over to Fantasyland to ride, Snow White, Dumbo, and Toad's Wild Ride. By that time it was getting pretty late, and time for the parade, so we headed back to the candy store for Tigger Tails (marshmellows on a stick dunked in carmel and then chocolate), and other fabulous treats for the parade. Rob was pretty tired so he decided to go back to the hotel and skip the parade, but Jennie had some great insider information and found us a fabulous spot, and we really enjoyed the parade.

Wednesday morning we were back at California Adventure, by this time I have to admit my feet were hurting pretty bad, from all the walking (yes I admit, I don't walk all the much most of the time). The first day someone had stepped on my right big toe and by Wednesday it was very swollen and I was well on the way to loosing the toe nail, add in the fact that I had been on my feet non-stop for 4 days, and I was not a happy camper. With one small meltdown by, well pretty much the entire Crane family tried to get into the act, we had a nice day. We stopped to get some pictures of all the family, here's a quick sample:

We caught all the rides we had enjoyed the first couple of days at California Adventure. We also had a really great lunch at the Pacific Wharf, with bread bowls and soup (Rob had a bread bowl filled with Shrimp Louie Salad). We just took the day slow and easy, spending a lot of time sitting between rides (apparently I wasn't the only one with sore feet). We all went on the Tower of Terror again together, and then everyone decided to call it early that night and head back to our respective hotels for dinner, and a quiet night. Rob was dead tired, and Jake was dying to try swimming in the hotel pool, so we headed over to do that. Jake had a blast swimming in the pool, the swimming lessons are definitely paying off, he was jumping off the side and swimming around (under water, he doesn't quite have his above water strokes down). We had a quick dinner from the Pizza Hut at the hotel, and we were all asleep by 9:00.

Thursday all the family was suppose to meet to go to Newport Beach, but my toe was really bothering me, and well, I couldn't think of anything worst than a shoe full of sand in my already throbbing toe, so we called and said we were going to skip the beach adventure. It sounds like all the kids had fun, but Jake also wanted one more day at Disneyland, this being his first trip, he wasn't quite done. We had a leisurely breakfast at Mimi's (one of my favorite restaurants), got ready, checked out of our hotel (we had a different hotel for the last night), and headed over for our last day at Disneyland. It was kind of sad, but we had a wonderful last day together as a family. We hit all the rides that Jake had wanted to go on, that we hadn't have a chance, mainly Alice in Wonderland, Pinnochio, and Toon Town. Jake had a blast in Toon town and we ended up just taking it slow and spending most of the day over there. After a couple hours (or more, it was awhile) in Toon Town, we headed out to let Jake pick out something to take home from the trip. After going through the big Disney store in Downtown Disney, in true Jake fashion of all the things there, Jake picked out a Gabriella doll to take home to go with his Troy doll. We are working on having the whole High School Musical family living with us. We also picked up some fun treats to take back to our Sunday School class on Sunday.

We decided to say good-bye to Disneyland at about 4:00, as Jake wanted to get in some more swimming at the hotel (he absolutely loves to swim). Rob had never been to Cheesecake Factory before this trip and really enjoyed it the night we all went together, so we decided to do Cheesecake Factory as our last dinner in California. We had a really nice dinner, and talked to mom and dad, and told everyone to have a nice ride home. It was so much fun being able to be with everyone, and enjoy this trip. Jake will have wonderful memories of all the rides and fun with his cousins, and we enjoyed being with everyone as well. I have to admit though that because we don't get many chances to go on vacations as a family (this was our first in over 3 years) it was nice to have some family time, and a family day all day with just us.

We headed back to check into the new hotel, which was the Anaheim Suites, and if we ever go to Disneyland again I think we will definitely stay there the whole trip. The rooms were really nice, and a lot bigger than our other rooms, the only drawback would be not being able to walk back and forth to the parks from the hotel. Rob went to lay down and rest, and Jake and I headed to the pool, where in true Jake style, he immediately made friends with a little boy named Dylan, and they had a great time swimming, playing Marco Polo, and jumping off the sides of the pool yelling "cannon ball".

After a few hours swimming, we headed back to the hotel room for showers, and of course to see the results show of American Idol, where Jake promptly fell asleep. Rob and I decided to splurge and do an in room movie (Juno which was one of the best movies I've seen in ages), and then have a pretty early night ourselves (although I'm not sure why, I can never sleep the night before I fly anywhere, and Thursday night was no exception).

We woke up bright and early Friday morning, our flight left at 12:20, and we weren't sure with California traffic what time we needed to get away to make our flight, so we were up and out of the hotel by 8:30. Apparenly traffic wasn't too bad on Friday morning from Anaheim to Long Beach and we were at the airport by 9:00 which was clearly way too early, so we found a nice little restaurant for breakfast (some local place that had the best pumpkin pancakes I have had in years), and after talking to the locals we found that we were just a quick drive from a really nice beach. I felt bad that my sore toe had kept Jake from having his beach time, so we quickly drove up the road and spent an hour at the beach before heading to the airport. It was really nice, we were the only ones there, and had the whole beach to ourselves; and it was a great way to end the trip (although as I predicted sand on the toe was not a good thing).

We got home Friday, after a pretty uneventful flight, and even though we have a fabulous time we were all thrilled to be home. Jake walked in and said "I just love my house mom, even more than Disneyland". He's right after all, as magical as Disneyland is, at home with our family is really the true Magic Kingdom.

We really enjoyed having this time with the family, Jakey loved having his first Disney adventure with all his cousins, and we had a wonderful vacation, that will be part of our memories forever. We love you all!!!