We drove down south to redeem the kids’ Christmas presents, a trip to Disneyland and California Adventure. This trip was one for the memory books. The kids are cake to travel with and at a perfect age to enjoy all the rides. We had a blast with them, running from ride to ride. Not a moment was wasted.

We purchased 5 day passes for the price of the 3 day. The irony is we had the opportunity to go all five day’s but after 3 day’s of waiting in lines less than 10 minutes a ride, we rode everything we wanted to at least 2 -3 times, sometimes 4, sometimes 5. There was plenty of time to stop and chat with the Disney characters that were out and about and snap pictures, which was the most I have ever seen at one time.

Little Miss rode her first roller coaster. She was tall enough to ride just about everything. After going on space mountain, she jumped out, and took off running while yelling, "Let's go again!!" And of course, we all followed. 

 Food is always a wallet buster on these kind of trips. We tried to pack a filling lunch of foods that the kids don’t normally get to eat and save our money for one fun meal a day. We made deli meat and salami sandwiches on wheat rolls, cheese on bagel chips, fruit  and applesauce cups and for snacks bottled smoothies. I made two reservation's prior to our trip. One was to Ariels Grotto and the other for the Blue Bayou in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Both reservations were for 3 PM when our 11:30 AM lunch was wearing off. This left the dinner hour to ride rides when others were stopping to eat.

Ariels Grotto was the place to meet the Princess'.

Little Miss had a blast and the brother's obliged her for pictures with the Princess', one at a time.

The next day lunch at the Blue Bayou

On our day's off we spent time at the beach ......

We stayed in Carlsbad just outside San Diego, off the same exit as Legoland, 62 miles from Disneyland. Our place had a full kitchen and slept 7. There was an activity center that provided pool toys, beach toys and towels. The beach was just across the street within walking distance. On our days off from amusement parking, we swam, boogie boarded, body surfed, played pool and ping pong and putted on the putting green. We would without hesitation stay there again.

Now it's back to the books, day's below 60 degree's and time to talk about and scrapbook all of the good times we had!