Disneyland Day 1 (1/7/15)

If you haven't been to Disneyland, or haven't been for a long time, there is one thing you should know. It really is the Happiest Place on Earth. There are families who live hours and hours away, yet purchase annual passes to take their families multiple times throughout the year because it is that fun (my sister is one of them). And it is addicting. My family started meeting up for Thanksgiving at Disneyland a few years ago, and we love it. This year when we didn't go for Thanksgiving, I missed it enough to plan my own family trip. 

We started thinking about it because Ty is completely obsessed with Disney's Cars, and with a baby on the way, we knew we wouldn't get to do anything big for a while, especially as Tim graduates this summer. We used our hotels.com free night and Skywest credit card miles to save a little money, then added some money and gift cards we received for Christmas to help fund our trip and headed out to California!

Ty's bag was packed and ready for our trip:

 Daddy and Ty at the airport:

 We made it!

 

My sister, Mindy, who recently bought season passes, brought Katherine for a few days for her third birthday. They were only able to spend a few hours with us before driving back home, but we were so happy to get to see them! We started in Fantasyland with Peter Pan, then did the tea cups (yes, Mindy and I both did them!) We made the kids go with Tim to spin a little more.

 Dumbo!

 We packed in a few more rides before Mindy and K and to leave. Ty and K didn't have too much time to really warm up to each other, but they'll be friends soon enough.

 The boys on the bridge at the Tarzan Treehouse

 Once we left Mindy and K, we explored Toon Town. Ty loved all of the cars there.

 This is a picture of a picture, so it's not great quality, but we got to meet Mickey!

 The highlight of Toon Town was when we sat down to eat lunch and Pluto, Ty's favorite Mickey's group character, came up right next to us. Ty was so excited!

 When he came back to us, he said "Budo is the best dog in the world!"

 We walked back to our motel for naps, then spent the evening at California Adventure. We arrived just in time for the Pixar Parade. Ty was still a bit sleepy when it started, but he perked right up when he saw Lightning McQueen and Mater!

After the parade, we went into Cars Land (Radiator Springs). All of the neon lights were on and the street looked just like the movie. Ty was riding on Tim's shoulders and he just heard Ty say, "Whoa, dis place is a-mice-ing!"

Because Lightning and Mater were in the parade, Red the Fire Truck was greeting people at the Cozy Cone. We didn't even have to wait in line!

 We ate a delicious dinner at Flo's Diner, then got to actually meet Mater and Lightning!

 Ty was a little too star-struck to smile for the pictures.

 

 We did the Flying Tires ride, then Mater's Junkyard Jamboree (below), which ended up being one of our favorite rides (Daddy and Ty did it twice!). The tractor drives in a figure 8 while the trailer behind swings side to side. At first, we thought Ty was scared, but all of a sudden he just burst out laughing and laughed on every curve!

We walked around the rest of the park a bit and rode the Little Mermaid ride (one of my favorites) which concluded our first fun-packed day!