It is a sad day when I have to write about our trip to Disneyland, because that means that it is over. There is nothing more magical than being at the happiest place on earth for Christmas, and believe it or not that statement is 100% true. There truly is something about Disneyland at Christmas and although we will probably never go back for Christmas again, I sure hope we have a few more Disney trips up our sleeve. The weather wasn't hot while we were there, which is what I expected, but I just wanted to tell you that in case you are surprised we are wearing our jackets in a lot of these pictures.
Our first day there was just a relaxed day to explore the park and decide on the things that we wanted to see and do the most. In the evening we discovered a place called the Princess Fantasy Faire. I saw this line up and went to figure out what it was for. It was a line to meet some princesses. I found out you got to meet 3 princesses and they would sit and talk for a minute with you and take pictures. You weren't allowed to know what princesses were in there because it was a surprise. So...I hopped in line with Clara. We waited for about 20 minutes and when we got to the front we. discovered Pocohontas, Cinderella and Jasmine.
I can't even describe the feeling I felt when Clara was walking up to these princesses. There was something magical in her eyes, she was SO happy to see them, she loved them and I think she truly believed she was meeting the 'real' princesses. Right then and there I knew this trip had paid for itself, seriously, it was something else. As we were leaving, Clara says, "but mommy, we didn't see Sleeping Beauty and Snow White". All I could think was I guess we will be coming back here tomorrow.Our second day we had a breakfast with Minnie scheduled. It was so neat. You sit and eat your meal and characters come and join you and play with the kids, sign their books, take pictures, give them hugs and sometimes tease you a little. We saw Minnie mouse, Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Briar Fox, Chip and Dale, Captain Hook, and Max (Goofy's son) There may be more, but I am drawing a blank right now. All I know is there were plenty of characters and they spent plenty of time with us. It was a lot of fun.
Donovan was less than thrilled about the characters, he would scream "NO!" everytime one came anywhere near out table. Except when Captain Hook came by, he was all about him. Clara however, hid under the table when he came over. 
By the end of the breakfast we had Donovan giving Chip a hug, and that was a relief because I didn't want him screaming every time we saw a character in the park. We spent the rest of the day going on rides.
I made sure we headed back to the princesses around the same time we went the day before. We were almost at the front when one of the workers saw Clara in her cute Cinderella outfit and came up and asked if Cinderella was her favorite. Of course Clara said yes, and sleeping beauty. The girl went to check to see if that was who we were going to meet and came back and said they weren't in there, but would be in about 10 minutes. She then suggested we go through the line, meet the princesses that were there, then get in line again because Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White would be coming!! So we went through and found Jasmine again, Belle, and Mulan. Clara was over the moon again of course. I can't tell you how perfect these princesses are, their mannerisms, there beauty, even their signatures are absolutely perfect! So...after seeing them we got in line again and after 10 minutes or so it was our turn again! When Clara saw Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella she was jumping up and down yelling "Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty". It was so cute. 
This was the first time Jeff came through with us, and I think even he felt why I was so inclined to stand in line 3 times to meet princesses. Nothing beats seeing your child that happy and excited!Right after the princesses we went and met my parents who got VIP seating for the evening parade. We got a few VIP treatments while we were there because of my dad and his wheelchair. The parade was really neat especially with all the lights, because by this time it was dark out. It started raining through the parade though, so we were pretty wet by the end. We went on a couple more rides, then we went back to the hotel. My mom stayed with the kids and Jeff and I went back to catch some rides on our own. We got on a lot of rides, I guess the rain scared everyone away earlier in the evening, so we got on rides with no line at all. We could only think, why do people wait in line for 2 hours for some rides? None of them were worth that to us.
We spent the weekend in San Diego, did Seaworld and Legoland. This Santa is real, but the sled and the reindeer were made out of lego!
They were fun places, but not the same as Disneyland. I dragged Jeff and my mom and the kids to an outlet mall the first night we were there. I didn't realize that the outlet was the last exit before Mexico. The place was 99% mexicans. I have no problem with that at all, but we were a little out of place, it was a little awkward. I did find myself a new coach bag though, so it was worth it!! Clara got sick in Legoland, so it wasn't the best day for us, but luckily by the time we were back in Anaheim she was feeling better, so we could go back to Disneyland and enjoy it. One thing I noticed was the workers at Seaworld and Legoland were not even close to being as friendly as the workers at Disneyland. I think that is a big part of what makes Disneyland so magical. That's just my opinion though, so take it for what it's worth.So back to Disneyland on Christmas Eve. We decided to do California Adventure on this day, which is a whole other park.
It was probably a wise choice because it was easy to notice that the crowds were considerably larger then the previous week crowds. We found a place in this park where the rides were for little kids and there was no wait. So we got on 5 rides without waiting for anything. It was a great start to the day! 
Here we also visited Lightning McQueen and Mater. Donovan was so happy to see them, until he heard the noise they were making. The had a background noise of engines revving, he wasn't thrilled about that. You'll notice in the photo below that Clara is wearing sunglasses and her hat. My mom bought these for the kids one day because it was pretty hot and I didn't think to bring hats for the kids. Well, Clara picked this hat because it had sunglasses. She refused to take them off. She wore her hat and sunglasses all day and all night. It was so cute, and I swear she would have slept with them on if she could have, but I think she realized it would have been pretty uncomfortable.
We took in a couple of shows, and my parents watched the kids a couple of times for us so we could go on some of the bigger rides. I have to tell you that the roller coaster was AMAZING! Probably my favorite roller coaster ever. One thing that was really exciting about this day was that we all went on the ferris wheel together. I should probably clarify that all of us included my parents. My dad has never been on a ferris wheel, and he has always wanted to go on one. They let wheelchairs on the ferris wheel, and that is something else. Just a little background here, when I first suggested we take a trip to Disneyland for Christmas, the first thing my dad said was "so I can sit and do nothing while you guys ride rides all day? I don't think so" I assured him it was different then when he went 24 years ago, but none of us realized how different it was. My dad went on quite a few rides, including It's a Small World. I have heard him say a lot that he was left outside that ride when we went as kids and had to listen to the song over and over and over again and having no clue what was inside. Well now they have added a boat to the ride which wheelchairs can roll right on and we can sit down in front of him. It was nice that they could make the trip magical for my dad as well. I think he had a great time, even though we wore him out.
Anyways...back to Christmas eve. We went over and wandered through Disneyland in the evening, went on a couple more rides and then decided to head back to the hotel. It was then I realized I had no wrapping paper to wrap the Christmas presents. Good one hey? So once back at the hotel I got in the car and rushed all over to try and find some store open that might have wrapping paper. Thank goodness I found a grocery store within 5 minutes of closing where I could pick some up!
Christmas morning we spent an hour or so letting the kids open their presents. Of course there was a theme to their presents. Clara's were mostly princesses, and Donovan's presents were mostly cars. Christmas day we spent at Disneyland.
I don't know of anywhere else you can get a picture taken with Santa on Christmas day!! Especially a real santa like this one!
It was so packed you could hardly move let alone push 2 strollers and a wheelchair! It was crazy!! We managed to find areas that weren't quite as crowded and sticked to them. We also managed to find Ariel, who we hadn't seen yet and I was told that we couldn't see her unless we did the princes dinner. I was happy that Clara got to see her.
That evening we did another character meal. This time it was a place called Goofy's Kitchen. We didn't see nearly as many characters as the first meal and most of them were repeats, so really it wasn't worth the money. It was neat though because Goofy would do a little show for the kids every 30 minutes or so, and he danced with the kids and gave them pots and pans to bang together to make music. Here we saw Goofy, of course, Pluto, Minnie, Chip and Dale, Jasmine and Cinderella.
Boxing day, which really isn't boxing day to Americans, we were going to go to Knott's Berry Farm, but my dad was worn out so he couldn't get out of bed for it. I went to the mall first thing in the morning. For some reason it was open at 7am and when I was there at 8 I pretty much had the whole mall to myself! It was the best boxing day shopping I have ever experienced because most of the stores still had some crazy sales!! We were going to go to Disneyland for the afternoon, but after walking there and finding out there were nearing capacity for the day, we decided it was too busy and we would go back first thing the next day and get in the park for 7am, stay for 5 hours and head to the airport for our flight. So we walked around downtown Disney, ate at the Rainforest Cafe, which was so not worth it, and went back to the hotel. From this point Jeff and I decided to take a trip to find a beach. We found a beach after 30 minutes or so of driving and spent about 10 minutes there because it was SO cold!
Then we spent about 4 hours trying to find our hotel again. We were so lost. It really sucked. We stopped at 4 different gas stations and followed the directions they gave us and none of them got us to our hotel. Finally we found a gas station where a guy told me directions that actually helped us back. Once at the hotel we looked on a map and discovered that at least 4 times that night we were within blocks of our hotel and went the wrong direction, driving further away. It was awful!We woke up bright and early our last day and headed to the park at 7:30. We were able to get on a tonne of rides without waiting very long, which was really nice.
Then as the park was getting crazy, we headed back to the hotel and straight for the airport. Thank goodness the traffic wasn't too bad because we were cutting it close to get there in time for our flight...oops. It was an uneventful flight home until we found out that we had been locked out of our house. We didn't take any keys with us because I always lose keys on trips. We thought we were safe because we had loaned Jeff's car to his brother. Little did we know that he had locked it up safe in our garage, with the keys and garage door opener inside. Luckily one of Jeff's other brothers offered there house for us for the night, or who knows where we would have ended up! The next morning we had a locksmith come out and we were in our house. I have never appreciated my house so much and while I am happy to be home, I do miss being at the happiest place on earth!
