A year later--Disneyland 2012 trip re-cap

Man, the past year has been busy and the thought of keeping up this blog for the 2 or 3 people that read it has seemed a little silly (not to mention the people that DO read it are also Facebook regulars who get all the updates and photos in real-time anyway).

But I've started missing using the blog for occasional longer journal-type updates, so I'm going to try to start it up again--we'll see how it goes.  While I'm not going to try to sum up events of the past year, I did want to post our Disneyland February 2012 Disneyland Trip re-cap with photos and details for my own benefit, and in case you all want to live vicariously through my posts (or learn anything about planning your own Disney trips!!)  Note, this trip was a year ago, so although I took detailed notes of which rides we went on at what times, I forgot a lot of the other details.

So here's a re-cap of Day 1, Monday, Feb 6, 2012

  6:30: We wake up the kids.  Maddy tells us "I've been awake since 5:30."

  8:04: We leave home

  8:49: Abe asks if he can have his trail mix, since he found 10 airplanes (the kids were airplane-hunting as we drove by the Phoenix Airport).  We told him he had to wait until 9:00.

  8:59: Abe gets to have his trail mix 1 minute early because he found a total of 20 airplanes.

10:45: Bathroom break at the Blythe, CA Carl's Jr.

12:25: We stop for lunch at Burger King in Thousand Palms

  1:00: Back on the road.

  3:02: We arrive at the beach (Huntington Beach).  Along the way, we saw the Via Balboa beachfront condos/apartments and wondered how much they cost--not sure the rental price, but the 2Bdr units are currently selling for over $500,000.

  4:45:  After checking in at our hotel (Howard Johnson across from Disneyland), we headed to Downtown Disney.

The kids in front of the Disney California Adventure Park entrance...no more oversized letters to stand in front of.

  5:15:  We met our friend Cody underneath the Mickey Sorcerer hat at the entrance to the Disneyland Hotel.  He took us on a tour of the Disneyland Hotel, including a tour inside the Concierge lounge and the awesome Pirates of the Caribbean Suite.  Here are pictures of the kids hanging out in the hotel lobby's teacup seats:

  6:00:  Went to the Paradise Pier Hotel and ordered the Kitchen Sink dessert.

  6:45:  We tried to head back to Downtown Disney and got lost on the walkways/streets.

  7:40:  We arrived at our hotel for the night.

Alrighty, so that's the first day--other days coming soon!!!