Disneyland! La, La, La, La, La, La, La Disneyland

We're back.  Did you miss us?

I'm really tired and my ankles are swollen from 12 hours in the car yesterday.

Yesterday we drove through 4 states.  Pretty impressive.  I also accidentally drove 100 mph yesterday.   But only for like 3 minutes because I wasn't paying attention.

Oops.

Anyway - here is a summary of our trip in list fashion because like I said, I'm just too tired.  And then, some pictures.

The Highlights -
*Rented mini-van's rule.  I didn't have to put the miles on my car and the boys had enough space that they didn't fight.
*Raising Cane's chicken fingers in Las Vegas are awesome.
*Disneyland is fun and very family friendly.
*My boys are brave.  Both boys rode on the Matterhorn and screamed at the Yettie.  Elliott rode on Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain, and everything else that he was tall enough to ride.  He was scared of Pirates the first time but after the second ride, he was singing, "yo ho, yo ho" the rest of the evening.
*Darth Vader scared us with his light saber.
*Captain Eo is awesome.  It almost made me cry watching it, having flash backs to when I was a kid and I LOVED MJ.
*Boys are cheap.  The only souvenirs they wanted were Buzz Lightyear lights and lasers.  And bubble guns.  We got out pretty easy in the souvenir department.
*I love churros.  Especially hot Disneyland churros.
*Visiting the park in the Spring is way less crowded than visiting in the Summer.
*Early entry rules.
*First time in my life I road Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
* I rode Space Mountain for the first time in almost 10 years and did not get sick.
*The ocean is beautiful but too windy and cold in March.
*I came home with a couple hundred dollars still in my pocket.  I love it when I don't spend all my money!

The Low lights -
*Cheerleaders!  They were everywhere and besides being overwhelmingly annoying, they were just really in our way.
*I didn't get a good Diet Coke in the park the entire three days we were there.
*Cold weather - I didn't pack for cold.  I packed for what I thought California weather should be like, not what the weather actually was.  We all managed to stay warm, but next time I'll pay more attention.

There really weren't any bad parts of our trip.  Except that the Chick was sick.  He started a really croupy cough on the drive down.  He puked in the hotel in Las Vegas.  When we got to Anaheim, Ross took him to an urgent care.  They said he had minor ear infections, a 100 degree fever, and croup.  They gave us antibiotics.  The medicine made him sick.  He puked three more times on the trip.  We had to get a new antibiotic prescribed.  We had to have the hotel launder all of the Chick's blankets because he went through 7 blankets (he's just like Linus in case you didn't know.  He drug a blanket through the park for three whole days) in about 24 hours.  The hotel charged us $175 dollars to launder 5 blankets, two little boy shirts and a pair of little boy pants.

Ridiculous!

We had long, sleepless nights with baby coughing and crying and screaming and the Chick had grumpy, coughy days and he only wanted his dad.  He was generally disagreeable but I think he still had fun.  On our last night in the hotel, he was particularly out of control and after almost two hours of screaming, being steamed out in the shower, fighting his inhaler he finally calmed down and went back to sleep....on a pillow, on the floor, in front of the door to our hotel room.

I also didn't know that being at the ocean was a bad idea for a two year old asthmatic with ear infections and croup.  The kid started coughing every 15-30 seconds as soon as we sat down for lunch at Rubie's Diner on the Huntington Pier and he didn't stop until we were inland again, and back at the hotel.

Anyway - that's it.  We survived our first long road trip with the boys.  We had a great time.  I'm grateful to my parents for taking us on such a grand adventure.  To my brother for being willing to hang out with his goofy nephews.  To my sister for being a baby pack mule with me.  There isn't anything better than spending three days with my family at Disneyland with a churro and a diet coke.

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Side note - I decided not to take a "real" camera on this trip.  I just took an iPhone 4 with a zoom lens attachment.  It was awesome.  I took nearly every photo with a hipstamatic app and they all turned out way cool.  It was a good decision.