All that is Disney Part 2

California Adventure!  Days 2 and 3!

Kamron all set for a day of fun...

Bugs Life is a great 3D show. Oaklee does not agree.  At one point in the show fog shoots out at the audience which scared Oaks into closing her eyes, when she finally reopened them she was confronted with a gigantic spider lowering itself from the ceiling near her.  It was all over after that.  She was terrified.  And when we went to the show a 2nd time, she was far less than thrilled.

 California Screamin - Pretty sure the oldest 4 (Kamron, Tyson, Morrissa, and Tate) rode this thing 4,000 times in a row.  A few times they were joined by Dan and Sharli, and by the end Oaks and Kyndi joined as well.  They loved it.  Poor Dayton was too short, it didn't matter how many extra socks we stuffed into his shoes, he was still barely too short.  He was heartbroken.

 With all of their 4,000 rides on California Screamin, we were lucky enough to have the carousel close by. We got the chance to ride it 45,000 times!!!  Oaks and Dayton would jump off and run right back in line. Atticus was a big fan of this ride too.

 Oh don't worry, the carousel pictures don't stop there....

 Leave it to Dayton to strike such a pose...

 Sam caught this one of me.  Lovely.

  The Cars ride. Gotta love my Dad's face here...

 It became super windy at some point, which made the crazy Ferris Wheel all the more fun

 Tower of Terror was loved by all...except Kyndi.   I was smart and stayed off all together. (Same with Jersi)  (The bottom picture has all my family in it. Oh!  So does the middle one I think)

 Tate hung out with Jameson and got to snack on a giant turkey leg.  gross.

 In Bugs Land we apparently turned into Chinese food (while waiting for everyone else on some other ride)

  All set for Midway Mania...

 Chasing the Duck. This was actually before the parade at Disneyland the day before

 Oaks got to hold Mary for a bit while everyone else was on Tower of Terror

 She was my number 1 riding partner.

  I got to ride on Little Mermaid with my Little Man Gus (Atticus)

 What does one do at the end of the day when they are completely exhausted??  Remove all shoes and socks and turn backwards in your stroller for a little nap of course!

Waiting for World of Color to start

  Dad got a special invite from Jersi to ride the little Jelly fish ride

All that is Disney Part 1

The three days we spent between Disneyland and California Adventure are a blur of exciting moments.  So I will now simply puke a bunch of pictures your way in completely random order and give commentary as I go...

Traditionally my family goes on The Haunted Mansion very first.  We stuck to this tradition, but soon after found ourselves on Pirates of the Caribbean.  My dad had a FANTASTIC idea to hurry out of the boat at the end and snap a picture of everyone before we exited the ride.  We leaped out and promptly fell on his face.  Hilarious no?  He got the picture taken but in all the commotion, and his slight injury, a few people got left out of this epic picture.  (Not pictured, Sam & Brad, Jonathan, Jen, and Anna) (Mary is the bundle you can see on the far left of the picture)

This is a picture Samantha took on the Pirates ride

 The Junge Safari... this is my cousin Christopher as the Safari tour guide.  Fantastic!

 My kiddos were watching a turtle digging its way out of a hole all whilst a bird was trying to attack.  They did a great job at scaring the bird off.

Watching the Disney parade.  We had all the Littles on shoulders.

 The description on the next picture tells the brief story, but let me elaborate a bit.  Oaklee was thrilled to be the driver, but soon decided all of our fate was in her hands and she could not keep the ride in control.  She became very terrified, begged Tyson to take over the steering wheel and then bawled the remainder of the ride.  Poor girl she really believed she was driving that thing!  And for the remainder of the trip she refused to be in the driver seat on any ride.

 A selfie with Captain Hook (Jersi refused to stand by him)
Tea with the Mad Hatter (Again Jersi refused to be near him)
And the Evil Queen who insulted Kyndi's Snow White outfit and then told us to have a wretched day.

Jersi found herself a Prince Charming whilst waiting in line for a ride...

 I. Love. This. Ride.  Dayton, not so much.  I was reassuring him throughout the entire ride that everything was okay.  Being completely in the dark was a bit scary for him. (He LOVED every single other ride he went on) Oaks opted to stay off the ride with Grandma and Grandpa.

 Tate took a lot of selfies

By far my favorite ride of the day, and perhaps even the whole trip.  We went on it early in the day with everybody.  Then later, Kamron was off with the 2 oldest, so I got the chance to have my mom and 5 kids ride with me.  This was hands down Jersi's favorite ride.  She waved to every character in the ride, complimented them on their singing and their outfits, and danced right along with all of them.  

My favorite picture of the entire trip is the one on the left, first notice Jersi and her freaked out face (I zoomed in below) - No worries she still begged to go on the ride again...   Now notice what my Kyndi is doing to my poor mother in the backseat.  Bahahahahahahahahaaaaa!!   Best picture ever!  I am still kicking myself for not purchasing this picture at the park!!!

 When the day was done and we returned to the house we were completely exhausted. And I mean Completely. Exhausted.

Onto the rest of the trip!!

DisneyLand or Bust

So, many, many moons ago my siblings came up with a fantastical idea of our entire family going to Disneyland together.  After much deliberation over dates that were most convenient to the majority of us, we settled on the week of March 9, 2013.

I now bring you highlights of vacationing with all 22 members of our family.

As flying for 9 people does not equal frugal vacationing, we chose to drive.  How does one travel with 7 children for 9+ hours one might ask...  simple answer.  Drug them all.  Joking!  We piled into our suburban where Kamron installed an extra van bench in the back facing backward to fit us all.  With the interior space all taken up by heads, legs, elbows, and my own hand created "car entertainment kits" for each child, the luggage found it's own place, on top of the vehicle.

At something near 4 AM on the morning of March 9th (give or take an hour for daylight savings) we were off - and had stopped 3 times within the first hour! (bathroom, and adjusting the luggage as it was making a killer noise we were not willing to listen to for the entire drive)

The drive was long.  Enough said.

A few follow ups to the above picture...  There was a star due east that was incredibly bright compared to the rest of the stars, it was seriously crazy.  My dad investigated and discovered it was Saturn.  Pretty cool.
There is a picture of Kamron sleeping here - that is because I drove from Nephi to Primm, NV.  Fantastic right?  It actually wasn't bad at all.  My sister Sharli and I entertained each other via Voxer (kinda like a walkie-talkie app on our phones)

My dad rented us a house to stay in and when we finally arrived it was fabulous!  Plenty of beds for everyone!  I got this little gem sometime that day...  Daddy and Jersi reading a book.

As most of my kidlets have never seen the ocean, we ventured out to the beach.  It was after dark when we arrived, but we still hung out for an hour or so...

You can see Tate in the background of this picture...he looks like something creepy arising from the water

Dayton and Tate got super brave going further and further out into the waves.  Kyndi and Jerz spent most of their time searching for seashells in the sand.

Alert: TMI about to be disclosed...   Consider yourself warned...

So... About twenty minutes in to our ocean adventure Jersi started doing the potty dance and claiming she had to go really bad.  So I did what any resourceful mother would do at the beach, with no bathroom, in the dark.  I took her swimsuit off and helped her squat in the sand.  Within seconds she announced she was done and I moved her away from the puddle only to discover it was no puddle at all, but rather a big pile of diarrhea.  Gross.  Now what?  Bury it in sand of course!

The beach was a blast!  Would've been better in the light, and warmth of day, but it was still great.

Later that night this happened...

That my friends, is most of the adults snuggling up on a bench in an attempt to watch the Disneyland fireworks from the back patio of the house.
I believe it was a bit later this same night that my dad took a hilarious tumble whilst trying to jump onto a chair on the patio to check over the cement wall for safety measures or something...