Family Vacation: Disneyland

For our Shepherd family vacation this year we went to Disneyland and San Diego. We drove to St. George the first day and stayed overnight and then continued on to California the next day. Emily was mostly pretty good on the way there. I looked back one time and found her reading a book. So cute!

Our first day in California we went to Disneyland. The first day, Emily did pretty well. We mostly hung out with my parents, which was fun. With fast passes and rider swap passes, we got to do a lot of rides and the longest line we ever waited in was 30 minutes.

Emily loved the rides. She loved looking at all the colors. The only one she really hated was the Nemo ride when it got really dark. She poked my contact out of my eye during that part. Luckily I caught it and was able to put it back in. She wore her Mickey ears and people kept commenting on how cute they were.

I got a birthday button and Emily loved eating it!

At one point on Day 1 in the late morning, she started to get cranky so we laid her down in her stroller, draped a blanket over the top and she slept for a good hour or so. She was good for another couple of hours, and then in the afternoon we went back to our hotel for a nap. My dad just took his nap right in Disneyland!

Her favorite ride was the Jungle Cruise. She loved it! She would just hold onto the railing and look out at the water and the animals. It was so cute. She also loved Pirates, the teacups, Small World, the Haunted Mansion, Little Mermaid, Bugs Life, and the Toy Story rides. She didn't like the Carousel too much though. She also loved the shuttle bus and cried when we had to get off.

But her favorite thing was when we would let her get down and crawl around. I was hoping she would be walking by the time we went on this trip because I knew she would want to get down, but we just had to deal with her crawling on the dirty ground and trying to find a relatively uncrowded spot and make sure she didn't get stepped on. (At one point a fat old man stepped on her hand. It was so sad.)

If I learned one thing from this trip, it is that we have quite the hyperactive little girl. She was not content to be held or confined to her stroller. This little girl needed to be on the move, which was hard at a place like Disneyland. I also learned that she gets super cranky if she misses her naps. Of course it didn't help that she cut her two top teeth while we were there so she was extra fussy, had a fever part of the time, and a nasty diaper rash. But we tried to make the best of it and had a fun time.

Kyle got me a princess hat for my birthday.

We did the best we could to entertain her while standing in line. Once we got on the rides, she was great.

Even though it was a family vacation, we hardly saw anyone the whole time besides my parents that first day. But we did manage to do a few things on the last day with Scott, Mystie and Rivers. I'm not sure what the rest of my siblings were doing, but we never saw them. On one of the nights my parents were nice enough to watch the babies so we could at least have a few hours to do something without having to worry about a baby. So we got to see the World of Color show, which was really cool.

This is when we fit 6 people into one teacup!

I found some mint julep! Although I decided that Anne's is better. :)

And here is the mandatory family picture by the Mickey plant.

And the wishing well where it all started. (Remember how Matt and I got engaged the weekend we went to Disneyland?)

Emmy's great-auntie Ginx got her her very first Mickey ears with her name on them. So cute!

My auntie Ginx lives like 10 minutes from Disneyland so she would come hang out with us after she got off work.

One thing I wish I would have taken more advantage of was the Baby Center. I only used it the last day, but they had places to feed and change your baby that was cool and quiet. I think Emily just got way too distracted. Even though it was a whole new ball game with a baby, I still love Disneyland!