Cali baby!!! 

(Part 1)

Our trip to Cali was all about the love.  Big J loved growing up in California and we loved our time living there together shortly after graduating from college and having our first baby there.  This is the home he grew up in and he has many fond memories of his family here.

We loved the pool time!  This was a perfect pool and we all had a blast in it!

The kids loved these trees and other fun water features the hotel pool area had.  I would recommend Ramada at Maingate for a great stay near Disneyland.  They are in the middle of redoing the rooms but we were far enough away from the noise that that didn't bother us any!

Loved the time to relax & enjoy family time!

Who doesn't love Disneyland??!!!  It was all of our first time but big J's--whos' been several times having grown up 25 minutes down the road.

We had a nice walk the evening before our first day in Disney.

I love this bench.  The kids humored me by taking a pic with it. 

The people I love most.  They are super cool.  We got in the gates before the rides opened so we killed some time and made a plan of action for our first few minutes in Disney.

Da girls on Autopia--2nd ride of the day.

One of little A's favorite rides.  This and the Matterhorn.  Yeh, she's a thrill seeker.

Dumbo.  Not our favorite ride (or movie) but I still love the pic.

Loving our day with Mickey!

I love this Mickey face made of FLOWERS!  Again, the kids indulged me.

Day 2 of Disney:  

Awww yeh!  Disney California Adventure!!  First ride of the day (for us and most patrons of the park) was the Cars Racers.  This was a seriously cool ride and we loved it.  My & little J's favorite ride.

Oh, it was so fun to walk the streets of Radiator Springs!!

Love the tire tower.  It is so tall!!

We loved this ride

Soarin' over California was cooler than I thought it would be!

California Screamin'.  B's favorite--she loves roller coasters.  Another thrill seeker.  

They can fly!  

We also ended our day in California Adventure with another ride on the Racers (other than the amazing Colors fountain show)  So fun!!  Our time in Disney was really magical and we couldn't have had a better 2 days in Disney!!  What a fun family adventure!  We love our kids' sense of adventure, the fun that we have together and that they get along so well.  We prepared for this trip for over a year with the kids giving half their birthday money to our "Disneyland Fund", putting spare coins they found on the ground in, doing extra work, giving at least half they money they earned for spring cleaning plus we went to the Disney store and got Disney shirts, had a 25 day Disney countdown chain with certain activities along the way and we watched videos of the rides and studied the map, etc. and it was so fun for all of us to see the preparation and work pay off in having a grand time together!  We have told them this may be the only time to Disney since we have many other adventures we still want to go on as a family and hopefully we've made this a one-time memory that they will keep for years to come.  It's possible we'll go again but there's definitely lots of other trips on our radar for future years.

(Part 2 to come)