From Rob's Camera

Here are some pictures from Rob's camera that I just downloaded tonight. I think they were taken over several of the days so you'll have to use your imagination to figure out where they fit in the Disney time-line.

Our nephew's Weston and Logan. You'll see that Weston's holding a map. This kid has some awesome map-reading skills! Seriously, he was our navigator and always had his map out, knowing exactly where we were at all times.

This is our other nephew, Landon, with a little toy helicopter that Rob decided to buy for him.

This was a little play area near an out-door eating area.

The kids loved banging on things. We more or less have a ban on toys that make noise in our house :0)

Logan and I on the chew-chew train. The Buhl family was all dressed in black and orange to support the Beaver's. Unfortunately, our support wasn't enough to get them to the Rose Bowl.

All of the kids seriously loved the bumper cars. This is a good shot of Weston about to run into Uncle Rob.

Do kids come any cuter than this? Seriously?

I think this was the day we left the park at midnight.

Still, we had to stop and see Mickey. He's legendary!

Goofy's Kitchen and Downtown Disney

I'm sorry I've neglected to finish blogging about our trip. These pictures are from December 5th, our first "down-day". We started off by having brunch at Goofy's Kitchen in the Disneyland hotel. It was a blast! We sat right by the door where the character's entered and exited, so we got a lot of face-time with the different characters. Here's who we met:

Dale
Balloo

Goofy

We danced with him in the middle of the restaurant!

Jasmine

And Belle. I liked that she wasn't wearing her fancy gown, that was pretty cool!

Oh yeah, and Chip too!

This was a random picture place that was set up in the Disneyland hotel. I'm guessing they had photo-ops with Santa, but he wasn't there, so we took his spot!

Then we went walking through the other Disney hotels too. We wanted to see them in person. I'm not sure if we'll ever get the chance to stay in one, but they were all pretty cool. This pictures is from the Disney Grand Californian hotel. We sat here in their cool chairs and watched the fire for a while. It was beautiful!

Then we did a little shopping. I took Leeann to the Build-A-Bear shop and Rob took Titus to the Lego store. They each wanted to spend their spending money on gifts for the other person... it was precious! Titus got a big set of Lego people to share with Leeann, and Leeann made Titus a panda bear.

We went back to the Grand Californian to enjoy some Kettle Corn in the warmth instead of outside. We were sitting in a random corridor when all the sudden these four people started singing beautiful Christmas carols. It was really cool!

Here's Leeann and Titus with their bears. She got a pink bear and dressed it like Ariel. Unfortunately she didn't have enough money to purchase an outfit for Titus's bear, or he would have been dressed like Darth Vader! Oh well, he loves it just the same!

A Jedi Kind of Day!

When we walked out in front of our hotel this morning, this is what we saw. Did I mention we got a really good rate on our hotel?

In all reality, they were at the hotel next door. And, while we did get a great rate, our hotel is actually relatively nice all things considered.

We watched the Princess and the Frog's Showboat Jubilee today.

And we spent some time on Tom Sawyer's Island.

The kids enjoyed it, but Rob LOVED it!

Seriously, he was like one over-grown kid darting around the island!

My favorite kiddo's surrounded by loot!

We camped out for the Jedi show once again, in hopes of Logan and/or Titus getting trained to be Jedi's. With some valiant effort on our parts, Logan, Titus AND Leeann got to go up today!

This guy was having a whole conversation with Titus and he wasn't paying any attention at all. He was fiddling with his Light Saber. It was funny!

Leeann took Titus under her wing and was showing him the way of the Jedi before he got on stage!

Logan got to fight Darth Vader! Several times today he said that he's really glad he got picked to be a Jedi. We were too, because we didn't want to camp out for any more Jedi shows. Don't get me wrong, it's a good show, we've just done it a time or two... or four..l

Leeann took her job very seriously today.

The force is strong with this one! He was the last to fight today and everyone in the crowd was cheering for him.

Probably because he's literally 1/2 the size of the rest of the kids fighting today. See, he's the one in the front left about 6 kids over, leaning out looking at...?

Proudly displaying their training certificates! Notice Leeann's shirt it says "Princess Leia Rocks!" Aunt Suzy made it!

A Goofy Family!

We met up briefly with Jonathan, Jocelyn, Emma, Josiah and Lucas today. We got to sit with them while watching the parade! Rob went to college with Jonathan at WBC.

The kids all bought glow stick light sabers today. It took Rob about 2 minutes to decide that he wanted one for himself too. So, when they got back to the hotel they turned off all the lights and had a little light saber action going on. It was fun!

The princess was asleep (or at least pretending to be), but the boys had a blast!

And I had fun taking pictures of the action :0)

Daily Recap:

Matterhorn (2x)

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Laughing Stock Comedy Show

Tiana's Riverboat Jubilee

Tom Sawyer's Island

Jedi Training Academy

Holiday Fantasy Parade

Pixar Play Parade

9 rides/attractions and 11,882 steps

Character Fun!

Today was a cold, wet, rainy, windy, icky day in Disneyland. We Oregonian's persevered however, and stuck with it until the cold bitter end. And, because of that we got to enjoy some awesome perks--like riding Soarin Over California twice, Toy Story Mania 5 times in a row, going through princess Fantasy Faire 3 times in a row and riding Splash Mountain twice--all with little to no wait! We did a few rides today, but mostly saw cool characters.

Leeann was demonstrating how to do the Toy Story Mania ride to Ariel who was inquiring about what rides Leeann went on today. So cute!

We ended up seeing virtually the same 3 princesses in Fantasy Faire the first two times we went through, but decided to hop back in line one final time and it paid off because we got to meet Tiana from Princess and the Frog! Her movie comes out this Friday, and we already got to meet her! The line is usually an hour wait or more, but we went through in about 10 minutes. Priceless!

Belle was great. We saw her three times within a half hour so she remembered Leeann real well, and was very, very sweet to her! She's my personal favorite :0)

Cinderella snuck in just as we were exiting, but she pulled Leeann over for a photo so we got a bonus princess that time!

After we met the princesses we scurried on over to Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbell and her friend Terrance. They were funny bantering back and forth. Tink asked Leeann what she's good at, such as drawing or coloring. Leeann thought for a second then looked up at her and said, "I'm good at helping people when they're hurt!" And that she is. She's such a sweet girl!

We decided to go on Splash Mountain today since we were already cold and soaked (and wearing poncho's). It was Suzy, Weston, Logan, Leeann and I. The kids did great... none of them were scared a bit! In fact, they begged us to do it again and since there was no one else in line the cast member let us stay on the log and go again. Brave, brave kiddos I tell you. I was not nearly as brave as them!

Today's Recap:

Soarin' Over California (2x)

Toy Story Mania (5x)

Turtle Talk with Crush

Disney Animation Studio

Train Ride

Princess Fantasy Faire (3x)

Pixie Hollow

Indiana Jones (Suzy, Rob and Leeann)

Jungle Cruise (Robyn, Weston, Titus, Logan and Landon)

Splash Mountain (2x)

Haunted Mansion (Rob, Titus and Landon)

19 rides/attractions and 11,874 steps