The Happiest Place on Earth

Kyle trying to pull the sword out of the stone

The Celebrate Street Parade

Princess Tiana. We loved hearing her perform while we had a funnel cake at Cafe Orleans

Getting ready to canoe! Don't even get me started on the yahoos in front of us. That's a whole other story!

On Thunder Mountain

Look it's Darla, scuba diving for more Nemos no doubt!

On Finding Nemo's Submarine

At the entrance by the Mickey flowers

Kyle eating the yummiest hand dipped corn dogs known to mankind

On the jungle cruise

Darn monkeys!

Headed for the Indiana Jones attraction

Took a picture of Buzz up close and personal on our way to The Buzz Lightyear attraction where Kyle kicked my bum! My laser gun must have been broken.

Kyle posing with the "C" for Chase

Me posing with the "L" for Landon

Headed out for dinner

Playing at the beach

Kyle flexing his guns

Earlier this year Kyle and I took advantage of the "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" promotion that came and went quickly at the beginning of the year. We volunteered to make teacher kits for teachers that don't have the money to afford necessary school supplies (thanks for the tip Brianne). We filled our kits with pencils, erasers, scissors, stickers, staplers, white out, pens...you get the idea. We wrapped it up in gift wrap and attached a card that expressed our appreciation to the wonderful teacher who would receive it. Not so long after we delivered our kits we received our free tickets each to Disneyland!

Well a couple weeks ago we put those tickets to GOOD use. We had wanted to do something big for our 5th year anniversary last year but Kyle had just started with UOP and it just wasn't in the budget. So we wanted to make this trip an early anniversary trip and go to California for a little getaway. Another reason for this trip was to go on a REAL honeymoon. Kyle cheated me out of a honeymoon big time after we got married. We went to Sedona and spent the week at a GORGEOUS resort in the Red Rocks called Los Abrigados. We were going to go hot tubbing by night and play tennis, ride bikes, do pink jeep tours, etc by day. One problem. The mister got the worst case of strep throat I have ever seen in my entire life and was beyond miserable. We stayed in our room THE ENTIRE TIME! I rented Harry Potter movies while Kyle slept it off. Needless to say Kyle has been owing me some semblance of a honeymoon since then.

Our wonderful friends Juliana and Cory watched our kids for the weekend (bless their kind hearts) and Chase still relishes in the fun times he had with their little boys Christopher and Andrew. We couldn't have gone without you guys! Thank you for being SO incredible!

So we left early on a Friday morning and headed straight to Newport Beach. We spent the afternoon shopping and dining on Balboa Island then we went boogie boarding in Newport Beach. The water was of course freezing (it always is, even when we go in July or August). We (meaning I) just jumped right in anyway, haven't changed much have I mom? I had to force Kyle in, but once he got used to it, he started playing along with me. We caught some tasty waves on our boogie board and had a splendid time. We relaxed on the beach until it was time to check into our hotel then we washed up and went out for dinner at Olive Garden. We did some more shopping, had some frozen yogurt then headed back to our hotel.

Saturday was Disneyland day! Since this was Kyle's first experience we really wanted to go without kids. Our kids are just too young and they would have maybe enjoyed the first little bit but then really would've hated us and life if they couldn't get some naps. So call us what you will, but we went to Disneyland without our 3 year old and our 16 month old! We got to the gates at 7:30 a half our before they opened and we were first in line. We were all business about this day. Our mission was to get in as many rides as we possibly could so Kyle could get the full fledged magical experience. Mission accomplished. We leaped through the entrance (literally. OK I leaped through the entrance while Kyle pretended who kneweth me not). We went on everything on our "must ride" list (12 rides) before 11:00am. After that we just went on our favorites over and over again and tried out some other ones that Kyle thought looked interesting. We. Had. A. Blast. Kyle's fave was Indiana Jones so we went on that one 4 times and sang the theme song throughout the day as we frolicked through the park. By then end of the day we were wiped. Kyle wanted to stay for fireworks and Fantasmic but by 7:00pm we were both ready to call our day good. We will definitely be coming back with our kids when they are old enough to enjoy and remember the magic and we won't miss the fireworks then!

After our day at "the happiest place on earth" we came back to our hotel and literally collapsed on the bed for about 3 minutes then we went to Islands for dinner and watched Eclipse at the cheap theater.

Sunday we made the trip back home to see our sorely missed little guys. We had a wonderful time but we really missed those guys and couldn't wait to kiss their soft, squishy cheeks! Here are some pictures from our memorable vacation/honeymoon/anniversary.