Day 5--It finally stops raining, but one of the busiest days ever!!

Well, our last day at Disneyland (December 23) before Christmas was insane! It had finally stopped raining and we're pretty sure all the Christmas people had gotten there, because we had never seen Disneyland this busy--and we've been to Disneyland A LOT!!! We had to wait in long lines with fast passes. That's never happened. We still had a fun day and were able to still get quite a bit done, but believe it or not, we were kind of wishin' for the rain to come back so some of the people would go away! :)

One of the best things on this day--the teacups were finally running because it was finally dry enough. This was our only ride on them our whole trip.

Our family in front of the humongous Christmas tree

Just moments later when we tried to take another picture of the whole tree. They were too tuckered out. Ready to go to Grandpa's for Christmas.

Day 4--One of the best days ever at Disneyland

Did it stop raining you ask? Nope. Still raining. But the reason why our 4th day was so great was the Minnie breakfast we went to first thing in the morning. We had been there before and have always liked it, but today it was different. There was hardly anyone there (again, thanks to the rain) and so the characters spent a long time with each table and would come back over and over again. It was so awesome!! We've never seen that many characters there either.

Some of the Characters we met and played with

Captain Hook was the best. He came over and was playing with both girls. He would mess up their hair with his hook and just be silly. Then Emily signed crocodile to him and he ran away like he was so scared. They thought that was the coolest thing ever! Gotta say, Kenny and I sorta did too. :)

The girls loved sticking their tongues out at him--He would then try to get their tongue with his hook.

Messing up Ash's hair with his hook

It was really great and just made the rest of the day that much better. The icing on the cake for that day is they have a meet and greet with Rapunzel and Flynn from the movie Tangled. The wait is about an hour and they come and go a lot. Well Kenny waited right by the area where where the line was going to form and when they let people in, we got FIRST in line!! We only had to wait for a few minutes and then we got to meet them. The girls loved it and they also spent a long time with us. It was really cool.

Plus it stopped raining about 3 p.m. and so they FINALLY did Fantasmic and the fireworks that night. Success, success, success!!

Day 3--Still more rain, but lots of fun

Day 3 was just as rainy as Days 1-2, but we were now not even phased by it. We set out early and had a great day. Here are some of the highlights:

Riding Buzz Lightyear over and over and over again. Loved those no lines! :)

Riding Jack the Pumpkin King (as my girls called it) over and over again. Ashley and I especially love this ride--wish they would keep it like it the whole year!!

Ashley riding the Matterhorn for the first time and Emily riding it for the first time by herself. They all had a blast on it!

Cute family by beautifully lit up Small World--too bad Em's blinking

Cute family posing in front of the gorgeous castle, surrounded by rain.

The only tragedy of the day is on the way home that night we somehow lost Em's cute pink Utah Jazz hat (she's wearing it in the Haunted Mansion picture). We never found it and are still sad about it.

Day 2--Much better prepared

The morning of Day 2 dawned and we knew we needed to make a big change, so we went and found a Big Kmart and a Target and got the girls rain galoshes, waterproof rain pants, and some cute inexpensive sweatshirts and hat and gloves too. I also got some boots, some rain pants, and a beanie. This took longer than we thought, but we ended up being so grateful for taking the extra time to be prepared. We then ate some lunch, got ready in our new gear and headed out.

Don't get me wrong, it was still pouring rain and colder than we thought it would be on this trip, but now we were prepared. The girls stayed dry and warm. I stayed dry and warm and Kenny pretty much did too. We had a good day at California Adventure. Emily was finally brave enough to go on Tower of Terror and loved it. There were NO lines whatsoever and World of Color, which is normally SUPER busy, was so unbusy that we just walked right up to it before it started and got a front row seat. Pretty sweet! A much, much better day!!!

Tower of Terror

Waiting for it's tough to be a bug--The auditorium can hold probably 3-4 hundred people. There were 6 of us there.

Enjoying a yummy muffin that night as a late night snack before we went back to our hotel.

Our First Day at Disneyland--Complete Misery!!

Before we left to go to Disneyland, we knew that it was supposed to be raining in California for at least 4 days of our trip. So we packed accordingly, thinking it would be like the rain we'd seen at Disneyland before. We were sorely mistaken!! California had record breaking rain during the week before Christmas. They had never seen this much rain.

Our first day at Disneyland was a great learning lesson of how unprepared we were. We thought we could just roll up the girls pants a little and protect them with umbrellas and a jacket, but we were totally wrong! We were all soaked from head to toe. To make matters worse, it was also colder than we expected too so the girls especially were Freezing! We were very much troopers though and stayed until closing time. At the end of the night, we were exhausted, soaked, freezing, and questioning what to do now. We could literally wring out Ashley's tennis shoes and her toes (mine too) were so pruny. That's how wet we all were.

We knew this could not continue so we made a plan for Day 2. Stay tuned.

The girls at the end of the night. It's amazing that Ashley is smiling. She was FREEZING!!! She was probably so happy to finally be inside and not being rained on.

Preschool

Ashley loves Preschool so much!!!! She talks about it all the time and everyday asks, "Is today Preschool?" She loves her teacher so much, Miss Cheryl, and is learning a lot. They do tons of fun activities and make so many cute things. For Christmas, they had a party and a book exchange. They also made these cute reindeer antlers out of their hands. So cute! I'm so glad that we put Ashley in preschool this year!

Posing with her cute antlers and her name written by herself.

Announcement

Well, before I post about our Christmas adventures I realized that if you read this blog and aren't on facebook then you probably don't know our special news. After another looong year and a half of trying, we are going to be blessed with another baby!!! I am now 20 weeks along and find out on Tuesday if it is a boy or a girl. I'll let you know soon what the verdict is. Feel free to comment and put your predictions. :-)

Happy New Year!!!