Back from Disneyland...but life is crazy!

We've been back from Disneyland but life is *very* crazy here right now! I haven't forgotten about you all or about my blog...but time is scarce these days and I have some family stuff going on.

Disneyland was AMAZING! Better than I ever dreamed it could be! The longest line we waited in was fifteen minutes and that was very rare--we walked right onto almost every ride and even were able to stay on rides like Dumbo to ride them two times in a row! It was fabulous!

On our very first day my children held hands with Minnie Mouse and went skipping through ToonTown with her! They were the envy of many children, that's for sure! The next day we were able to march with Mickey down Main Street as the Main Street Band marched to Town Square. We met every princess except Mulan (and my children don't know who she is anyhow) and had pictures taken with TONS of characters. My little girl held hands with Pluto and they explored several store windows along Main Street. It just was wonderful!!

It truly was a magical trip. We have been spoiled for future trips!!

Look at the expression on my little girl's face--this was when she saw Snow White on a float during the Parade of Dreams. The joy on her face just takes my breath away.

Treasure Hunt!

Monday was the day we told the children about our trip to Disneyland in TWO weeks. To make the announcement extra fun for them, I made them a treasure hunt! They found the treasure map when they opened the front door to go out for a walk--and they were SO excited!

The treasure map was very basic, but Princess loved it and read it all to her brother.
The first step was to touch the mailbox and next they were instructed to find an apple tree. They knew right where to go for these tasks!
The next task was to sing to a stop sign--I put this stop in for my own amusement. They opted to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" to the stop sign at the top of our street. I could barely hold the camera still enough to take a picture of that because I was laughing so much. It was so cute and funny!
After consulting the map some more, they were off to the next stop!
Next they found a basketball hoop and jumped five times and then they walked around our Jeep.
They checked the map again...
And went over to sniff the yellow flowers before heading into the backyard to count the tomatoes
After counting the tomatoes, they climbed up on the wall and clapped three times
Then they looked behind the stump...and shouted with glee!
Yes, that's right, an ammo can!! (You have to remember, our family enjoys geocaching and ammo cans are the children's FAVORITE type of cache to find because there usually is good treasure inside that they can trade for.) My two year old shrieks "AMMO CAN!!" whenever we find one--he really loves them!

After they were done dancing a jig of joy, Princess hauled out the ammo can
And they settled down to open it...
And were thrilled to find presents inside!
Inside the presents were custom Mickey and Minnie shirts that I had made for them to wear at Disneyland. Both children were SO excited...but I really think they loved the treasure hunt even more than they liked hearing that we're going to Disneyland!

Disneyland!!

Yes, that's right, we are going to DISNEYLAND!!! I'm so excited! I made our hotel reservations in January (found a great deal) and kept my fingers crossed that we'd actually be able to make the trip in September. Yesterday I found great airfare prices that I was afraid would disappear quickly, so we had a long discussion last night about finances and whether or not this trip would happen. Obviously we decided to go ahead with it. We are so excited!

We're going from September 16th-20th and spending three days actually in the parks--the other two days are for travel and looking through Downtown Disney (shopping). Princess will be so thrilled! One of her good friends from preschool went last year and Princess keeps mentioning that we should "go there someday." Oh what a wonderful surprise this will be! I can hardly believe it is just two months away!