Christmas and Disneyland

All right, I'm going to give you the condensed version of our Christmas holidays. On Christmas Eve, we gathered with Miguel's family and had a good time. We had a traditional Mexican Christmas meal, complete with tamales and some wonderful posole (a Mexican soup that is a family favorite). We played some minute to win it games and had white elephant gift exchanges.

 Christmas Morning:

Santa was extra good to the girls this year and surprised them with stockings full of goodies and TICKETS TO DISNEYLAND!!!

After attending church we jumped in the car and headed for California. I actually think the girls were more excited about seeing there cousins than actually going to Disneyland. We made it there that night and the girls had a lot of fun hanging out together.

Oh, and did I mention that at the last minute we decided to leave Max with Miguel's parents. He would have been miserable and totally off  his schedule if we had taken him and we was treated like a little prince at there house. It hurt our hearts to leave him, but once on the road, we were so glad they volunteered to  help. Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa!

 Day 1 at Disneyland

We got there around lunchtime and we soon found out that everybody else on earth thought it was a great idea to go to Disneyland the day after Christmas. And the ticket lady told us that it is the busiest week of the whole year. Just great. Let me tell you right now, we will no longer be visiting at Christmas again.  We hit California Adventure our first day and had a good old time. All lines were between 45-90 minutes long, but we knew we had five days to get it all done, so were were relaxed. We all loved Mickey's Fun Wheel, but the real story was when we lost Sophia in the wilderness adventure fort. Yep, for 10-15 minutes we searched and searched and our hearts were racing. It was dark and she ran ahead of us and "poof" she disappeared. When I finally located an employee they said they already had her and told me where to go pick her up. Thank you Disney!!!! Then we had to do a mad dash over to Goofy's Kitchen for our dinner reservation. I highly recommend this place for a character meal. The food was delicious! I could have eatten their brocollini forever. The characters spent a lot of time with you and Alladin was by far our favorite. He even engaged my kids in a game of chase around the restaurant. Awesome. Will definately do this one again.

 Day 2

We got up and got to the park early because the park was filling to capacity each day and if  you were already in, you were safe to come and go as you pleased. We learned that Julianne was big enough to ride everything! That was the best part. We went and rode Space Mtn. and  Thunder Mtn. with our fastpasses and the kids thought it was just great. In fact that is what they kept requesting to do, for the next three days. I was so proud of them, because I wouldn't do it till I was in my late teens. But then again, I was a big scaredy cat most of my young life. Then when the crowds were at their worst we headed over to the new pirates lair on Tom Sawyer's Island. And yet again, we lost Gabriela, and she bawled and told us it was no fun that she couldn't run and explore like she wanted too. Sorry sis, not in these crowds. Needless to say, I was a little on edge and thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown.

We went  home in the afternoon took a long three hour nap and headed out after dark. We even exposed our kids to a 1am meal at Denney's after the park closed. We rode so many rides that night, because noone was out that late. Best time to hit Fantasyland and actually, when you've been exposed to Space Mtn., Dumbo just doesn't do it for you anymore. I like these kids of mine.

 Day 3
We were now definately slowing down. We rode the train back to toontown and explored Toon Town and then we hit the tea cups, Sophia's favorite. This is the one ride we cannot pull Miguel on.

 We then went over to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for the girls makeovers. I've been really excited about this and knew that this was probably my only opportunity to do this. The next time we go, the girls will be too big and not interested. They brought their princess dresses (and nightgown in Gabriela's case) and they got all prettified. They felt like a million bucks when they walked out of there. Gabriela leaned over and whispered "Mom, don't worry, you won't ever loose us now. Everybody is staring at us!" Which she loved every minute of it.

 We then headed over to California Adventure for our lunch with the princesses. Now I just have to say, that I don't like this place. This was our second time going there and the food is not that great. It's kind of wierd. And the princesses are not that nice and pretty much wave the kids to take a picture and then they are off. Not personal at all. Oh, but the best place to meet characters is by Snow White's wishing well. We ran in to Peter Pan much to our surprise and he sat and chatted with the girls for quite a while and was really in character. So fun.

And that night is when I discovered my camera was missing. I walked all of California Adventure looking for it and asking the employees at all the rides we rode if they had it. Luckily it turned up the next day and they shipped it to me for free. Nothing like Disney, ya know. So all the rest of my photos are sitting in Miguel's phone. But for now, here is what I got, and am so glad they were recovered.