Disneyland with Family

As everyone by now knows, this year, Disneyland's promotion is that you get into Disneyland FREE on your birthday. To make long story short, my sister in law and brother in law came from Oregon last week all centered around going to Disneyland for Ed's 40th birthday!

We spent the day all day with them on Tuesday, and they stayed in a nearby motel on Tuesday night and played all day on Wednesday. We just spent the one day at Disneyland. I was worn out and tired and wasn't up to dealing with the crowds that might come out as a result of Veteran's Day. But Tuesday as GREAT!!! We had a wonderful, wonderful time and did managed to squeeze a lot in during the short off season hours for the park.

Over the weekend the kids had all been practicing in anticipation of being chosen for the Jedi Training Academy in Tomorrowland. To say Ryan is a Star Wars fan would be an understatement - he eats, sleeps, breathes Star Wars. So the first thing we did for the day was head over to the first showing of the Academy. We've seen the show dozens of times, but never once has either of our girls had the desire to go and try to be chosen. They were too afraid to fight Darth Vadar, let alone the scary looking Darth Maul. But on this day, Rachel was up for trying out! I think it helped tremendously that her two cousins had the strong desire to be picked. Turned out that all three of the young cousins got picked and they are now officially honorary Jedi trainees. They each did an awesome job and made this entire family of Star Wars Geeks proud!!! Rachel even says she'll try again next time we're at Disneyland!!!

The crowds were light and we managed to do sooo much. We spent the day focusing on the big rides and a lot of the favorite rides that our family hoped to accomplish while visiting. We all went on Autopia, and managed to be on the tracks that were side by side and had fun racing, passing up, and taking pictures. There were some rides that the smaller kids didn't wish to experience, and a time or two, Rachel wasn't quite tall enough to ride. So we had our fun sitting out and waiting for the rest of our family to get off the rides. The cousins all had a great time paling around and riding with each other and competing to sit with one another on rides, etc. We really did have a great day!Gramie with four of her five grandchildren.
Disneyland closed at 8:00 on Tuesday. We skipped dinner and took advantage of relatively short lines and then went out to dinner after leaving Disneyland. The kids were all tired, but they relished all the time they could have together...