Are you thinking to yourself, "Didn't they just go on a Disney vacation earlier this year?" and the answer is yes, yes we did. We were going to do a low key vacation this year to maybe like Arches National Park, but long story short, we ended up in Disneyland. We were talking to Tracy to see what they were doing and she said they might go to DisneyLand, so we said if they went we would go. I'm so glad we did because Carson is going to graduate this year, and this may be the cousins' last time to go on vacation all together.
At 4:23 am, we were ready for our long drive to Cali.
Looks like Brynn slept great. She said Makayla's bum was a great pillow.
Grandpa Craig drove with us and had some fun with the kids along the way.
We stopped in Mesquite for breakfast, switched kids, and headed the rest of the way to Cali.
We checked into our hotel, then went to Downtown Disney for dinner. Our tickets came with something called "Dining dollars" which is like gift cards. We had $120 in dining dollars, but it was such a mess to use. Jerm was insistent on using them, even though we tried to tell him it wasn't a great deal. We had to buy a $100 gift card for $60, and spent forever trying to figure out how to use the gift card. Our dinner was good, but not worth the hassle, so now we have $80 in dining dollars, and the joy of teasing Jerm about it the entire trip.
We walked around Downtown Disney, got some beginets, and then headed back to the hotel to go swimming.
Random funny moment that I never want to forget: every time we would get in the elevator at our hotel, Tyler would turn on the song "Holiday Road" and we would all sing the song until the door opened... and I don't want to forget Jerm telling us every time that we shouldn't dance in the elevator because we would break it.
The next day was our Knotts Berry Farm day. We had our season passes from last year, so our day was free. The kids were so excited to show the Jones boys all our favorite rides at Knotts.
We all loved the Calico Candy Mine Ride, the log ride, and the Pony Express,
We got to meet some fun characters...
We had to split mid way through the day because Cam is not a fan of the scary rides, but the rest of the kids were. We finally got to ride Xcelerator. This ride was closed when we came last year, but this ride goes from 0-80 mph in 2.3 seconds. It was crazy scary, but so much fun.
We ended day 1 with dinner at Mrs. Knotts Restaurant.
Day 2 we were ready for our fun day at Disneyland. The decorations are so cute at Disney during Halloween.
If you don't get a picture in front of the castle, did you really go to Disney?
We love all the rides at Disneyland and love the treats even more. This Alien macaroon was delicious!
I love that even though the kids are getting older, they still love to ride all the rides, even Alice in Wonderland.
Our group was so big that we got our own car on Indiana Jones.
Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway is one of our favorite rides... especially the Daisy dancing part.
The kids were kids at Toon Town
Our favorite snacks from day 1 were cream cheese pretzels, Tigger tail, giant chocolate chip cookie, and of course, a Minnie caramel apple.
Day 2 was spent in California Adventures. We thought we would get the Cars ride right off the bat because the wait is always super long for that one. Even though we had to wait about an hour, I'm glad we did because the ride broke down and was down almost the whole day.
Our group worked out perfectly because there were 12 of us and we all fit into 2 cars, so we could race each other at the end. Our car won!!
Then it was off to our next favorite ride, Guardians of the Galaxy. I have never laughed so hard as we were flying up and down. And our pictures turned out hilarious!
We love Animation Academy where they teach you how to draw Disney characters. Today we learned to draw Ursula from the Little Mermaid.
Everyone thought I was crazy because I would run around the park to try different kids of food. I just figure if you are in DisneyLand, you have to try all the fun food... you can get a hamburger or pizza anytime, but you can only get the "Not so Little Chicken Sandwich" at Disneyland. And yes, it was really yummy... I would say my favorite meal of the trip.
It seemed like we spent a lot of the day waiting in lines, but that's what you have to do now. We bought the Lightening Lane pass, which helped us to get on all of the rides at least once. The Grizzly River Run was so fun, but we all got soaked!!
Good thing we have the Disney app with fun games and filters to keep us busy in line.
Well these girls look disgusted... get it?
Incredicoaster is our favorite... and conveniently there is Jack Jack Num Num Cookie right as you get off the roller coaster.
Picture perfect.
While everyone else went to get a boring soup bowl, I went to Cars Land for the Mac and Cheese cone.
Caden opted for the turkey leg
The kids wanted to draw again, so they went Animation academy and got to draw Baymax from Big Hero 6
Our last ride of the night was Guardians after dark. The kids were so excited to ride it again and had their poses all planned out. Tyler and Makayla thought it would be funny if he pretended to choke Makayla on the ride. So when we got off the ride we kept checking to see our photo but it never showed up. We couldn't figure out what went wrong until we finally got it and it had Makayla and Tyler blurred out. Apparently they deemed that as inappropriate? So enjoy this great picture of the rest of us, and Tyler and Makayla blurred out.
Makayla was terrified they were going to not let her in the park the next day... like so worried she didn't sleep great that night.
Good news, they let all of us in the next day. We spent our last day in DisneyLand. We started off with all of our favorite rides, like Indiana Jones, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Speaking of Pirates, one of my favorite memories on the trip was all of us singing "Yo ho, Yo ho a pirates life for me" as we started the ride, then screaming at the top of our lungs as we went down the hill, and then clapping as the ride was over. I'm sure the people on the ride with us thought we were crazy, but they all played along too.
We love Rise of the Resistance, even if it is a really long wait. It is such a cool ride that lasts like 20 minutes.
See these cute shoes I have on? Well I should learn that comfort should outweigh style when at Disney. I wore these shoes the first day and they were better than I expected, so I though I could wear them again on the last day. I was in so much pain at this point in our trip. My poor pinkie toe was crushed and every time I took a step, it throbbed. By the end of the night I was limping and now have a black toe nail. Do you think I will learn my lesson next time? Probably not. Because look at these shoes... aren't they cute?
I kind of miss the days when the kids were younger and we would wait in lines for hours to meet characters. Not this time. We were lucky to run into Chewbaca, but he was the only character we met.
Do you know what helps 12 hungry and exhausted family members to be more ornery? Sitting in the hot sun for 15 minutes to watch the band.
Do you know what helps the Evanses to not be ornery? Treats. This one was our absolute favorite.. the raspberry rose macaroon. It was so good that Makayla got one as her souvenir later that night.
The Haunted Mansion turns into Nightmare before Christmas during the Halloween and Christmas season. Tickes have to be done with a virtual queue and you can only ride this once a day. Funny fact... we have only ever been to Disneyland during Halloween time, and our kids had no idea that this ride was not Nightmare before Christmas all the time. They thought that was just the ride and when we explained the actual ride was Haunted Mansion, they were shocked. I think that may be a sign that we need to visit DisneyLand some other time during the year.
Tiki Room with Dole Whips is a must.
As is trying to pull out the sword.
I have no idea what is on her phone, but I just love this picture of these three.
Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!!
Look at these cute sugar cubes in the teacup.
There was some sort of malfunction on the Matterhorn, so the kids got pulled off the track while still in the ride. They thought it was pretty funny.
We ended our night the laser show in front of the castle and treats and souvis.
It was such a magical trip and I am so glad we were able to go again. I love that our kids get along so well and have so much fun with the Jones boys. The older 4 have so much fun teasing each other and coming up with Nick names (McNuggett might be the funniest one Colton gave Makayla). I loved watching Carson and Brynnli ride some of the rides together and realizing that only Disney can make a 10 and 18 year old believe in magic again. I loved watching Caden and Cam play games in line and laugh uncontrollably, I love the banter between Tyler and Jerm, and Tracy teasing me about all the treats I got. I love that Terry and Craig said their favorite part of the trip was just watching all of us in awe as they tried to keep up with us. And even though my feet were killing me by the end, I want to remember running as fast as we could all around the park to get in one last ride with Tyler in the lead yelling at everyone to hurry up. The 12, as we like to call ourselves, have so much fun together and we made so many memories this trip.
