Sunny but not so warm So. Cal!!- Part 1

I am so behind on my blogging but here we go.  We went with my family to Southern California for Disneyland, Sea World, the World Famous San Diego Zoo and the beach.  It was a very busy week and a half and it was a blast.  I took a ton of pictures.  I mean, it was my child's first trip to all of these great places and I love all of them so it makes it easy to take pictures.  However, I almost forgot the camera and that would have been tragic.  We drove down with my mom and Mike and Kath and Darrell rode down with my dad.  So my mom came and picked us up on Friday and we were in Salt Lake and I realized I had forgotten the camera.  Luckily we hadn't gone too far so we were able to turn around and get it.  Danny didn't want to turn around and it get, WHAT?!!? No way in heck we were going on this trip without the camera.  It was a pain to go back but I am so glad that we did.  We drove down to St. George on August 6th, Danny's birthday!  It wasn't a very exciting birthday for him but my parents did take us to the Pizza Factory for his birthday when we got there so that was fun.

Sam was getting a little restless right before we got to St. George so we started taking pictures to try to entertain him a little bit.

It was really nice to stop and get a break from driving.  

Sam liked the hotel until he fell off the bed at about 6 o'clock in the morning.  Oops! He started crying at like 3 or 4 and I didn't want him to wake my parents up so I got him out of the pack and play and put him in our bed.  I'm not sure how it happened but he rolled out of the bed and it wasn't a short fall.  Luckily he didn't get too hurt.  

I knew I was going to be driving home with Sam without Dan's help so Dan sat in the back with him from St. George to California.  We got to San Diego around 4 in the afternoon.  It was so nice to have the drive over with.  We stayed in San Diego Saturday and Sunday night and we got to be there when my  nephew Tyler got the Priesthood.  It was great to be there.  Monday morning we took off to Anaheim and Disneyland.  I love Disneyland and I was very excited. 

The kids were all pretty excited as well.

Dan and a few other people took off to the Tower of Terror so we took advantage of some of the characters that were hanging out.  Sam wanted to see the characters and then when we got up to them he would get nervous.  And then of course when we walked away he wanted to go back and see them so that's pretty much how it worked the whole time. 

Sam hugged and hugged and squeezed and squeezed poor Madison.  Madison was a good sport until about Day 3 and then I think it got a little old.  Sam squeezes too hard.  I try to get him to hug soft but it's like he doesn't know how.  We'll keep working on it.  

    

We played in California Adventure, rode rides, hunted down characters

and at about 5 o'clock Sam was out.  It is very unlike Sam to sleep like this but I was not complaining.

We went to the 11 o'clock World of Color show and it was pretty cool but it was really late and we were pretty beat.  Sam really like it at parts but also got scared, surprise surprise!

The nice thing about getting back to the hotel at midnight is that Sam went right to sleep and slept all night long.  

But we were up and at them Tuesday morning for another day of Disney.  

 

We headed over to ride some of the little kid rides in the morning when the lines weren't long.  As usual Sam was nervous when he first got on the ride and then once it got going he was fine.  He really, really liked the Carousel and we rode that a few times in a row.  

 Doesn't he look so excited for Dumbo?  Poor kid.  What doesn't kill him only makes him stronger right??  We headed over to Indiana Jones and we started talking about how people will act like they are taking pictures of their families but they are really taking a picture of a hot guy or girl in the background.  Ever done that?  Anyway, we thought we would re-inact it and I think Dan did a good job posing in the background.  You have to do something to pass the time standing in line.

Dan's uncle David and his family were at Disneyland the same days that we were so we met up with them; for a few minutes anyway.  They were on their way to lunch and my family was waiting for us to go on Splash Mountain so we didn't have a ton of time but it was still fun to see them there.

Splash Mountain is my favorite ride by the way.  We only went on it once but I loved every second of it.  Long live Splash Mountain. :-)
Kath and Darrell were watching Sam for us while we went on Splash Mountain and they got in line to see the Winnie the Pooh characters so we got to get all of our pictures with them without hardly waiting b/c Kath and Darrell had done most of the waiting.  So thank you to them!!

He was smiling with Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore but wasn't so sure about Tigger.

My camera died early on this day.  Amateur mistake not charging my camera battery every night but luckily all of my sisters and mom took a bunch of pictures so when I get the DVD of all of them I will be fully stocked.    We went on It's a Small World later at night and Sam really, really liked it.  Sang along, clapped, just loved it!  We had so many people that we got our own boat, and there was nobody in line b/c there was a parade going on so we got right in.  I have some sweet video I'll have to post later.  Day 2 was yet again a great success!!