The Call Family

My mom and dad are so amazing; for our Christmas present this year they took all of us to Disneyland!

We left on Tuesday, November 30th, and drove to Las Vegas to spend the night. Avery and Kaden were so good during the long car ride. They slept most of the time. We pulled into Las Vegas at around 9pm and decided to take Avery for a ride down “The Strip” to see all of the lights on the hotels. She thought it was pretty neat! We checked into the hotel and went to bed. My mom and dad and brothers and sister all woke up super early to drive straight to Disneyland to spend the day there. Skyler and I decided that we wanted to sleep in and spend some time in Las Vegas before heading to California.

We woke up, got ready, and checked out of the hotel. We drove to the MGM Grand hotel to show Avery the lions there. We arrived a few minutes before the lions came out to play. It was fun to see them come running out and play with their trainers. They were very active. We learned that they sleep most of the day so we were really lucky to get to see them while they were awake and active.

After seeing the lions we took the kids down to the M&M Factory. We went up to the third floor and watched a 3D movie called “I Lost my ‘M’ in Vegas”. Avery thought it was pretty funny! After watching the movie we walked through the gift shop. We made it out of there only spending $5! Avery insisted on having a bag of M&M’s and they were having a special “6 bags for $5″. We each picked a bag and then got a few more. Skyler got some coconut flavored ones and he thought they were pretty good. Neither of us had seen them in stores before. Avery really enjoyed the M&M Factory.

After going to the M&M Factory we stopped at Taco Bell and had some lunch and then continued our drive to California.

We met my family and had dinner and then headed to the hotel to go to sleep.

Seaworld

On Thursday Skyler and I decided to take the kids to Seaworld. We had to drive about an hour and a half from the hotel to get there, but it was worth it. We had found ticket online so that if we paid for an adult ticket a child ticket was only $5. It was a really good deal.

We walked in the gates and were heading towards the back of the park for one of the shows when we passed by 17 flamingos out for a walk with their trainers. Apparently they take them for a walk every morning and they were just finishing up as we walked by. It was really neat to see all of these flamingos walking down the path.

After watching the flamingos walk by we went to see the 4D show “The Polar Express”. This show was really neat. We wore 3D glasses and the seats vibrated and it snowed and at one point Skyler got sprayed with water! When we walked out of the theater it was snowing! (fake snow right outside the doors). We then headed to see the “Shamu” show. This show was really neat, I think Avery got bored with it though.

In between that show and the next one we wanted to see we stopped by and saw the starfish. Avery actually reached in and picked one up. She was so excited to hold them that Skyler had to slow her down.

After playing with the starfish we headed over to see the “Sea Lion” show. This show was a lot of fun to watch. The sea lions are very funny animals. After the show one of the trainers took about 10 minutes to show the audience how they train the sea lions. It was fun to learn and to see how they train them.

The last show that we saw was called “Blue Horizons”. It was a show involving dolphins, whales, birds and humans. I love to watch the dolphins and all of the fun tricks they can do. Avery’s favorite part was watching “the girl in the pink wet suit” dance around and play in the water with the dolphins. This show was very entertaining to watch. I didn’t get any pictures of the dolphins because I was too busy watching them. This is a picture of what the stage and tank looked like.

We saw many other fun things while we were at Seaworld. We saw sharks, seaturtles, penguins, polar bears, and much more. We had a blast!

We met my family at The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and then headed back to the hotel to go to sleep.

Disneyland

Day One

As a tradition in my family we always start out our Disneyland trips with a ride on “Pirates of the Carribean”. This is one of my favorite rides. When we went down the hill I got a big splash of water all over the side of my pants. Kaden just sat there and looked around. Avery got a little scared, but enjoyed it by the end.

After this ride we headed over to Fantasyland. Avery realy enjoyed the rides in this land. We rode on Peter Pan, Snow White, The Carousel, the Teacups, and then we headed to It’s a Small World. This one was Avery’s favorite ride. They had it all decorated for Christmas. Also, inside the ride they added all of the Disney princesses and Woody and Jessie. Avery had a lot of fun trying to find all of them throughout the ride.

We headed over to California Adventure and rode on several rides over there. We rode on the new Toy Story Mania ride. In this ride you wear 3D glasses and you are driven around in front of screens where you get to play amusement park games (such as: hitting balloons with darts, and breaking plates). We waited in line for this ride for about 45 minutes, but it was so worth it! Another of my favorite rides there that we got to ride on was California Screamin’. After riding on a few rides over there we had dinner and then split up from the group and headed back over to Disneyland. Avery wanted to ride on the Winnie the Pooh ride. There was hardly anyone over there so we rode on it two times in a row. Avery loved it! So did Kaden! There were so many bright colors that they both loved looking at. After this we decided to head back to the hotel to get some sleep for the next full day at Disneyland.

Day Two

This day was the best of the two. We walked in the gates and Alice, The Mad Hatter, and The Queen of Hearts were all standing there greeting people. We watched as The Mad Hatter gathered a large family together as if they were going to take a picture and then announced that they were a special Disneyland choir and they would be performing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” for everyone. The family looked quite confused, but they sang anyway. It was pretty funny. We finally got Alice’s attention for Avery and were able to get a picture of the two of them together.

The Queen of Hearts had noticed Kaden was crying in the stroller and she had gone over and was rubbing his cheek. Alice then noticed him and came over and knelt down by the stroller and sang him a song. The song along with the rubbing on his cheek put him right to sleep. It was really cute!

We left the entrance and headed back to the Alice in Wonderland ride. We then headed over to Toon Town. We walked through a few houses and took Avery on the small roller coaster there. She did not like it very much as you can see in the picture.

Then we noticed that Minnie Mouse was standing outside of her house and there was a very short line to see her. We hurried and got in line and Avery got to meet Minnie.

We then walked through Minnie’s house. Here is Avery styling her hair at Minnie’s vanity.

After walking through her house we noticed that Mickey Mouse’se house didn’t look too busy so we decided to go check it out. We thought that Mickey was not there because there was not a line and we were just going to walk through his house. Well, it turned out that he was there and Avery was able to meet him too!

Then as we were walking past Minnie’s house again we saw Goofy so Avery got to meet him too!

We left Toon Town and rode on the Teacup ride again. Avery loved it!

I loved it too!

Kaden was not too sure what to think about it!

We met up with my family and had some family pictures taken

The whole clan.

We went to Denny’s for lunch and then headed back to Disneyland to go on some more rides. My parents took care of our kids for a little bit while Skyler and I rode on Splash Mountain (another one of my favorite rides). Later that night we went to California Adventure with my family. They all went to see “World of Color” while we rode on more rides. A lot of the people were watching the show so we were able to practically walk right on Toy Story Mania, it was great! After the show we all went back to Disneyland and rode on Pirates of the Caribbean as our last ride. On our way out we decided to stop by the gift shop and let Avery pick one souvineer. She chose a “Boo” doll from “Monsters Inc.”

We headed back to the hotel and went to sleep and then woke up early Sunday morning to head home.

We had so much fun in Las Vegas and California. Thank you so much mom and dad for taking us. It was the best Christmas present. We love you!