Disneyland 2012!

Lets face it, a week in Disneyland = lots of photos. You have been warned. :)

On the 21st we took our annual family (extended family and all) trip to Disneyland. It happened to fall during Ethan's 4th birthday! What a lucky boy. :) My mom had gotten us a hotel, airline tickets and park tickets for Christmas!

We all piled in the car Saturday morning to head to my mom's house to meet up with her and Debi before we left, we found out our flight had been delayed an hour. (Which turned into a huge blessing ...). As we pulled into my moms driveway, Lincoln started throwing up all over himself and his car seat. Because of the delay, we were able to wash and dry his clothes and clean his car seat before we had to leave, and that made this situation a whole lot better.

Ethan and Lincoln on the plane watching them load the luggage:


Sweet big boy!


We had a really rough flight due to high winds. That made for a lot of turbulence and lots of nauseated people. Once we got close to Las Vegas (our 1 hour layover ...), it got even worse. We had to circle the airport there for about a half hour and it was bumpy and miserable. Lincoln started to get sick again and the poor little thing threw up on the airplane. LUCKILY, he had made a throwing up noise about 30 seconds before which was a false alarm, but gave me a chance to grab a throw up bag and put it in front of his mouth before he actually threw up. Poor little man. When we landed, the wind was unbelievable and ALL flights were delayed out of Vegas. Our 1 hour layover turned into 3 ... but once again, it made it so Lincoln's body was able to calm down.

We finally made it to Orange County, a few hours later than we anticipated. By the time we made it to the hotel, it was around 7-8 and we had lost all the time we had planned for going to the park and watching the fireworks. We ended up staying in and just resting, and I went to the local Walmart to get snacks, breakfast items and sandwich stuff.

The next day we headed into the park with Ty's family while my mom and Debi went to my cousin's ward for Stake Conference. We gave Ethan a camera for his early birthday present so he could take pictures at Disneyland. He was totally thrilled! He loves taking pictures.


Lincoln's sporting Ethan's Mickey ears. :) I'm not sure where his were, but he was content with Ethan's. He left them on for quite a while too!


My 4 year old birthday boy on his birthday! He looks so big all of the sudden!


That night after he fell asleep in the stroller and refused point blank to wake up to celebrate his birthday, lots of tears and tantrums, and more sitting in the stroller by himself ... Garrett managed to entertain him enough that he woke up and had fun at his birthday dinner. He finally got the ice cream and cake he wanted all day long and got to blow out a candle! And after a bite of cake, he gave it to someone else and just ate the ice cream.


Garrett showed him how fun the crazy straws were. Thank goodness for Garrett that night, he saved the birthday dinner! That was the only thing that made Ethan happy.



Mr. Lincoln was such a good baby! He loved the Winnie the Pooh ride. I think it was by far his favorite. He would squeal and point and chat up a storm whenever we took him on it. When he was tired, he wouldn't fight, he would just close his eyes in the stroller and take a little nap.


One of Ethan's favorite rides was the horse ride. Maybe because he could sit all by himself. :)


Monday was a super cloudy and very rainy day. Good thing I had planned ahead and we brought ponchos and three umbrellas. We all stayed mostly dry and my stroller didn't even get wet. (If you hang the ponchos over the stroller just right, it works great!) It's just kind of a pain, but it made for some really short lines at the park.




After a few hours of rain, it finally cleared up and just was cloudy for the rest of the day. It made it much easier to lose the ponchos and not worry about the stroller getting soaking wet.


Ethan was finally tall enough to go on some big rides! It made this year a lot more enjoyable for all of us. We didn't have to spend all of our time in the bug land or fantasy land going on kid rides over and over again. His very favorite ride was the "Scary Alligator" A.K.A. Scary Elevator ... which is actually the Tower of Terror!


I LOVED that he loved this ride! He had a crazy panicked look on his face after we got off the first time, but promptly turned to us and said "One more time Mama, one more time!" And from that point on, every single time we would go on it, before his seat belt was even off he would hold up his fingers and say "One more time Mama, one more time!"

Here are a few of the pictures from the ride. We went on it way more than this, but this is all I remembered to get. We would just take a picture of the picture at the end of the ride.

This one was the first time we took him. You can tell he's pretty nervous and has no idea what's going on.


This was toward the end of the week, and he was comfortable enough on it to even raise his hands in the air! What a brave kid!




This was another one of his favorite rides. He loves Ghosts and talks about them quite frequently. We watched short video clips of the rides on the Disneyland website before we went, and he watched the Haunted Mansion clip over and over again! He was so excited to go on the "Ghost House" and loved it! He was a little iffy when the ghost joined his carriage and sat next to him though...



And we can't forget Toy Story. Ethan loved this ride too. He loved going on anything with his cousins, and they were so good to him and played with him the entire time!


We even got to meet Buzz! He's not a character you see very often. In fact, in all the times I've gone (which is quite a few) I've only seen him once out and about talking to people, but his line was so long we didn't want to wait in it!


One of Ethan's favorite parts was running around the splash pad with Jordan, Garrett and Karlin. He laughed and had a great time.


Little Miss Karlin was soaked! I don't think there was a dry spot on her when they were finished.




Ethan was chosen to help in the monster street show. He wasn't too sure about that. He stood there looking at us funny and after a minute or so, just ran back and stood by us and watched with everyone else.







And... we can't forget the Mouse himself! Ethan was so much more comfortable with the characters this year! He actually walked up to them by himself and would talk to them and give them hugs. It was a huge improvement over last year when it took him 3 days to even get near them with his dad holding him.









This last photo was taken the last day at the park. It was right before our day totally went in a direction nobody expected. Debi (on the left), my mom (on the right ... in case you didn't know), Mart and I all went to get some lunch on the pier while Ty (my brother) and his family left the park for some lunch. In the middle of us eating my mom told us that she didn't feel very good and laid her head on the table to rest for a few minutes. A few minutes later she sat up again and didn't look very good and only lasted a minute or so before she laid her head back down again. She gets dizzy every now and again, so it wasn't completely abnormal ... I just thought she hadn't had enough water that day. It was really hot that last day in the park. All of the sudden she sat upright and all of the color had drained from her face and she flopped backward in her chair. Her eyes were wide open as well as her mouth, and she was making a muffled snoring type noise ... but she was completely unresponsive. Debi swore she saw my mom do some slight tremors and I couldn't get her to respond by tapping her cheeks. Debi told me she was having a seizure and I grabbed my phone and dialed 911. As I was talking to the operator I walked into the nearest building and told them I needed help and headed back out to my mom. She was out for about 30 seconds and when she came around she was sweating like crazy and couldn't remember a whole lot and was still really dizzy. The paramedics showed up within 5 minutes and the park first aid crew and nurses were there within minutes too. They were all so good and calm and knew exactly what to do for her. After several minutes we finally wheeled her back to the first aide building and she laid down to rest for a half hour so they could watch her. She refused to go to the hospital. They ran all the tests they could do on the spot and everything checked out okay. She has had fainting spells in the past, but they don't happen all too often. Maybe once every 5 years she'll just pass out. When they finally said she was okay to leave, she went back to the hotel and just slept for the rest of the day. That night when we went to see her, she looked way better and said she felt a million times better. It was by far one of the scariest things I have ever seen. I was glad that she was able to get help so quickly and that Mart, my cousin and Uncle were there to give her a blessing right there in the park. She has been totally fine since then and we are unsure what happened exactly. We're just glad she's okay.



All in all, it was a fun trip! I love going to California in January! The weather is perfect and the lines are short during the week. My kids had a great time and Ethan keeps asking to go back. Tonight while he was saying the prayer he talked about going back to Disneyland. I'm glad that he had such a good time and I can't wait to take him back again!