Santa's Present..FINALLY!

Our trip from Santa was planned for over Leap Day and it was almost everything we could hope for. I say almost because Mom always wishes and dreams that we will be one of only 100 families at the park instead of one in 1000 or more!

The end of February finally came and the family picked me up early from school and we hit the road!

The Carl's Jr at  Stateline has a play place, but for some reason the air wasn't working and it was
RIDICULOUSLY hot inside!

Sam was a surprisingly good sport for being only four months old and subjected to his car seat for so long. We stopped twice on the six hour drive to Grandpa Quaife's house. We were all so excited.

We arrived at the beloved house on Brittain street and hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Quaife for about an hour before we jumped into bed barely able to contain ourselves! It was going to be an early morning. The park opened at 8 am and we wanted to be there by 7:30 am!

Sam was having none of it.

But he eventually perked up!

Walking from the parking structure! We had already cracked open the suckers that Grandpa Quaife had given us.

Waiting for official entry into California Adventure!

Mom had made us new ears especially for this trip. She knew that I was going to want Star Wars ears and so we bought fabric and things to do it. We loved them.

Sam learned how to eat on the go quite well.

We didn't manage to get pictures of it, but we started our day with Dad taking Cara and me to ride Goofy's Sky School (Cara was finally tall enough!) while Mom grabbed fast passes for Racers with the two littles. Sam's first ride ended up being Ariel because Mom knew that Iva would LOVE the ride...and she did. It was the only ride she would ever request by name!

It didn't take us too long to get over to the other side of Paradise Pier and get me on California Screamin' for the very first time. I am finally 48" tall!!! I was pretty scared, but Mom wouldn't let me back out. 

Mom was pretty sure I hated it for the first 45 seconds of the ride because I was screaming "OH MY GOSH!!" in such a manner that it didn't sound fun. Well she was wrong. I LOVED IT. I just asked to wait a little bit before going on it again. Haha!

Mickey's Fun Wheel is always a favorite of ours, but unfortunately Iva didn't love it and so we only made it on the wheel once during our whole trip.

Bugs Land was more of a happy place for Iva. She liked the Chew Chew Train.

And Flik's Flyers.

Here we all are on Heimlich!

It's our customary thumbs up pictures. Unfortunately Sam couldn't ride so we are missing his thumb and Mom's.  

We managed to score an immediate visit with Anna and Elsa. NO WAITING. It was awesome. Iva loved them.

Speaking of Iva, she also got good at naps on the go.

Sam and Mom were wearing matching shirts!

Picture with Oswald! This is actually the first time we have met him and gotten a picture I think.

We made it over to Disneyland during the afternoon and checked out the new Star Wars stuff in TomorrowLand. They have lots of stuff even though Star Wars Land itself is probably a year or more off.

My ears had these two ships on them!

Iva was being quite silly while waiting to meet Chewy...whom she refused to go near!

We also bumped into Cinderella's Fairy Godmother!

And met Aurora next to the wishing well!

This was a Saturday so the parks were kind of crazy and full so it became a game of picking which ride we didn't mind waiting for. We had to get on Indiana Jones because it was closing for refurbishment on Monday, but other than that it was just about having fun. We stopped for lots of pictures.

This was one of the only times we rode the carousel as a family!

Busy days sometimes lend themselves to random short lines though and Mom was able to get us in to the princesses once again with almost no wait. Maybe five minutes!

IVA LOVED MEETING THEM ALL!!

She was most excited when she saw Belle though. She has been watching Beauty and the Beast and was so enchanted.

Siena tried to get away with being carried at one point. It didn't last long.

Sam really was an amazing baby all day. He was happy unless he was hungry or tired which turned out to be fairly easy to fix.

We earned our nighttime meal. Cara and I downed this plate of spaghetti.

Here was our failed attempt to ride Racers with mom. I say failed because we never made it on the ride.

Unfortunately they had a circuit breaker blow and I don't think they ever opened back up. It was so sad, but we had fun talking together. 

We even managed to go on Tower of Terror instead. (Much scarier at night!)

We stayed for World of Color and to get on Soarin, but man we were all quite tired. We left the park at about 10:15 pm. A FULL DAY.