Disneyland

Quote of the Day:

It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes.

George Washington in a letter to James McHenry on August 10, 1798. Although Washington liked McHenry personally, it was no secret that Washington often complained of McHenry's incompetence as an administrator. Washington must have been frustrated with him on August 10th.

Recently we took our family to Disneyland. We had been wanting to do it for a while, and finally did it. Here's a recap of the trip.

Day 1:

Left home at 6:00 AM. We had packed some food to eat as we drove, and looked forward to an In-n-Out burger for lunch in St. George. The weather was really bad the entire drive down. We faced winter weather through the mountain passes, horrible wind through Nevada and California, and were very happy to end the long day of bad weather. We pulled into Anaheim at about 7:00 PM.

Day 2:
DISNEYLAND!!!!!! This was a wonderful day! We got there early and stayed late. We were all exhausted, but it was just the beginning. We loved Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Soarin over California, and California Screamin'. The first ride of the day was Pirates (personally this was my favorite ride. We took our own lunch into the park and left it in the lockers on Main Street.

Waiting for the shuttle at the hotel.

Splash Mountain

Day 3:
San Clemente. We drove down to San Clemente, which is a nice beach town south of Los Angeles. I really like this town, there are quaint shops, beaches, art galleries, etc. We had a picnic at a local park, then spent the rest of the day at the beach and pier. The water was cold, but the kids didn't mind at all.

Picnic at the park

Playing on the beach

Sign by the pier

We put our feet together for a picture everywhere we go. We probably have dozens of pictures like this through the years.

Christian and Rhonda playing beach tic-tac-toe in the sand with different colored rocks.

Day 4:

More Disneyland!!!!! We were all exhausted by the end of this day.

Lunch just off of Main Street. We could eat and listen to a quartet singing each day.

Space Mountain. We bought a book called "Hidden Mickey's" that tells you where there are hidden Mickey Mouse heads throughout the park. Each ride has at least one or two. the Haunted House has a table setting in the ball room shaped as a mickey head. Pirates has 3 Mickey heads throughout the ride. You can see here that the middle speakers on Space Mountain are in the shape of a Mickey head (right by Jonathan's left shoulder). The big speaker is his face, and the two smaller speakers are his ears.

Ben jumped on and said "Dude, there's no way I'm freakin' walking".

Complete and utter exhaustion (but we still had to ride the rides until closing).

Day 5:
The Angels baseball game. We hung out, swam (until we were prunes), played games and did some things around town for the first part of this day. That night we went to the Angels baseball game. They lost the game, but it was a lot of fun being there. We got matching hats, ate peanuts and threw the shells on the ground, and each of us got a free souvenir blanket.

Board games in the hotel room

Pool-side (we lived there that day)

The game. It was cold, so we needed the blankets!

Day 6

Hollywood. We swam more this day, hung out a bit, went to Long Beach for a while, then went to Hollywood. It was a really windy day, and kind of cold. There were very few people on the beach, so we felt like we owned it. We went to Hollywood when it was still daytime, so we felt safe. However, being quite normal people, we still stood out and looked a little freakish (relatively speaking). We walked the boulevard and saw some of the stars, went to the Chinese Theatre to compare our hand and shoe sizes to some famous people, bought some souvenirs, then got the heck out of dodge!

Long Beach (you can see how crowded it was)

Next to Walt Disney's star.

Julia by her star (we've always known she was a star)

Amy by her future star (they're saving the spot just for her)

Christian is about the same size as Arnold!

Jonathan wearing his Jimi Hendrix shirt by Jimi's star.

Day 7

More Disneyland. We used our early bird pass and got in early, and stayed until closing. We were so tired, but we just had to do it. We made sure that our last ride was same as the first, Pirates of the Caribbean. We actually rode it several time at the very end because there was no line.

Day 8

The long ride home. We got up and went to breakfast, then packed the car and headed north. We contemplated staying overnight somewhere, but decided to just make a mad dash for home.

We stopped at an off ramp in St. George to stretch our legs, take a little jog, throw some rocks at a construction barrier, and swap seats.