Disneyland!!!

The real reason for the trip...DISNEYLAND!! I am a HUGE fan of Disneyland (I would say "isn't everyone?" but I am married to someone that isn't...so, who knew everyone wasn't?) ANYWAY, the night before Benson said...okay, lets get a map and decide what we want to do...ummm...who needs a map? I know everything I need to do and where it is!! We were only going to Disneyland for ONE DAY which I knew was going to be impossible to see everything but I pumped my kids up for "open to close" meaning...we are staying until midnight!! First things first, of course... And we were so excited to see Haunted Mansion with redone for Nightmare Before Christmas (Nate's favorite movie and he has in MEMORIZED)

After the first two rides Benson walked over the the "Tom Sawyers Island" ride...I kind of stood there and he could read my mind...."is this not on the Jones' family approved list?" ummm...I didn't want to be too controlling so I allowed him this one "ride" (not really a ride...shall we say "attraction) it was actually pretty cool and the kids liked it!

Autotopia...

The REAL Buzz Lightyear...

One of the things we FOR SURE wanted to do was the Jedi training...the boys are huge Star Wars fans and we knew they would LOVE this! We hadn't ever done it before but from other people knew that people got picked to be in the Jedi training...so we prepped our kids to be wild and crazy so they would get picked...and they ALL got picked (hooray!) This was a huge highlight for us...loved it! Too bad Benson couldn't get picked also :)

Sammy fighting Darth Vader

Nate and Darth Mal

Ben fights Darth Vader

Ben REALLY wanted to see Mickey Mouse...we finally hunted him down...

The kids wanted to be "goofy" in the picture with Goofy..

Mid-afternoon Nate hit a wall (and maybe so did Benson...he wasn't really on board with the whole "open to close" plan) and the two of them decided to sit a few rides out...when we met back up Nate was happy again...he has a nice dad!

Amazing story...the kids were BEGGING for a balloon...no way was I going to buy them one! Benson and I decided we were going to say "YES" as much as possible on the trip...but seriously you have to draw the line somewhere!

So, we decide to head to Downtown Disney for dinner and as we walk out we notice someone is handing out balloons for free...so we get them and notice it says "Disney is Unfaithful" on the balloon (they were protesting something...I actually did ask but I'm not going to write the whole thing down) ANYWAY, the kids were THRILLED to get a balloon but Benson and I didn't really want the anti-Disney balloon...so we decide that after dinner we will just pop them when we go back to the park...not 5 minutes later...the Disneyland people come and say "hey, we will switch you balloons!" and give the kids a Mickey Mouse balloon and pop the other one...AWESOME! That worked out nicely (but the balloons still were "accidentally" let go about 20 minutes later when the kids lost interest)!

Haunted Mansion...again..

On our way out we stopped and got an ice cream on Main Street (tradition)!

Nate passed out on the shuttle on the way back to the hotel...