disneyland!

paul and i went to disneyland our first year of marriage, then our 3rd year we went for thanksgiving with the rest of the family. this year we went with dad's side (almost the whole side). the larson family came up from arizona, the nelson family from utah, the s&j birrell family from utah, grandma and grandpa and us. the true "gamers" went. we drove down on tuesday, got there wednesday, went to disneyland wednesday, thursday, and friday. hit the beach on saturday and headed home. it was so nice to be with my aunts, uncles and cousins. we tried to stay at the park all day and night. we succeeded until friday night. we were all beat. i think december is the best time to go (usually the first week or two). i love family time. i love watching people interact and truly enjoy themselves. i have been blessed with a really good family. we all get along, we are patient for grandpa and mom's picture taking, and we chit chat in lines. i think there were 25ish of us there. everyone had a partner for rides. i love splash mountain. uncle scott, each time he goes down, does a different pose for the camera. we all wanted to try. later in the evening, the lines aren't long and you can usually stay on the ride. we must have gone on splash at least a dozen times each doing new moves. paul kissed his "guns", i picked my nose, angie screamed (and then on one of the rides down, made fun of paul and kissed her "guns" too). my favorite pose so far was when scott seemed to dive into the camera. really funny. the lights and decorations around christmas time at the park are the best. it is my favorite time to go. each night it snows soap suds on main street and plays white christmas. it is such a magical place. we love going with scott and jill because they know all the best places to go. this time we discovered the mission tortilla factory, a "how to draw" class where we learned how to draw a disney character and my favorite...(not sure what it is called) the singing and acting room. a group of us went into little caves, and we had the opportunity to watch a clip. we then spoke or said the lines and they were dubbed in. i laughed so hard i cried. i can't wait to try it again. the only problem is disneyland is very expensive. paul and i shared meals almost the whole time (that helped) and brought granola bars and fruit to snack on. the funniest thing is that the nemo ride was fairly new. dennis had a game plan...we had early bird tickets and we were going to let all the early birds go to the nemo ride and waste two hours until the park opened. we went on so many rides because everyone was at nemo. we thought...lets go to nemo fifteen minutes before the park opens to get a good spot in line. it didn't work. we got there and the line was still almost 2 hours long. i figure i will go on nemo in 10 years when the hype has died down. i can't wait until next december when we go again! i love disneyland!!! by the way, katie and ransom couldn't go because katie gave birth to conrad 3 weeks before...it was hard to leave her at home, but we knew she would be fine. i almost forgot the best part. as we were driving to our hotel when we first got to california, we drove by a cheesecake factory!!! cheesecake factory!!! we were all so excited. when we got to the hotel room, i called and asked what the wait was. we rushed over there. it was actually opening night for them. i knew the week was going to be a good one!

-ash