UEA break

Clay and I decided for UEA we needed to go somewhere it was warm! So of course the first place that popped into our minds was sunny Southern California, and Disneyland!

We left Wed. evening and decided we wanted to break our driving part up so we stopped in Cedar to spend the night at my parents home. The next morning we took off for California, only to get 45 mins. outside of Las Vegas when the car broke down. We called AAA and got a tow truck out (an hour later) and they towed us back to Vegas to a Chevy dealership to hopefully fix what ever was broken. Not to our surprise, they couldn't fix the problem that day, it would take at least a week. So we found a car we could rent and after our 5 hour detour we were headed back towards California. A quick story about the car we rented, it turned out to be a mini van. I was stressed when Clay first pulled up in the van because we had our entire suburban filled with two pieces of luggage strapped to the top too, so I didn't think there was any way we would all fit in the mini van. Well to my surprise we fit everything in the mini van and didn't even need to strapped any luggage on top. There were so many secret compartments in this van it was incredible! I have to admit by the end our trip I was sad to give this car back. I know my sisters are in shock right now, but I was really loving the mini van!
Anyways, the next morning we rose early and went to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland!
My parents happen to be in So. California for a funeral and decided to stay a few days longer and go to Disneyland with us.

Here is my mother modeling her favorite Halloween Mickey ears!

The boys decided they wanted to get in on the fun as well!

So you will notice that the kids are being pretty silly in most of the pictures. It was their plan to see who could be the most crazy in all the pictures. This is the kids on their favorite ride of all time....Tower of Terror!!

Yes, they even posed with the employees.

Now the best part about going to Disneyland with older kids is 1. we don't have to spend all our time in Fantasy land and 2. we don't have to spend hours in line waiting to take pictures with all the characters. After lunch Clay, my mom and dad and I were sitting relaxing with Luke while all the other kids went back on Tower of Terror for the 5th time, when a show started up right by where we were eating. We decided we would watch it, what the heck, we were all ready there when Mickey and Woody came out and we just happened to have the camera ready and took these fun shots. No waiting at all!

After many big rides, Luke decided he wanted to go on the Pooh ride. It was his favorite ride back when we lived in Valencia and went to Disneyland all the time. So we made all the kids go on it with us. As you can see, some kids were more excited then others.

Here was our second favorite ride, California Sreamin! Seriously, it is the best roller coaster ever! And even when we are about to blast off Savannah is texting! It just never stops with these kids.

This used to be Luke's other favorite ride back in the days, but now he likes the new Toy Story ride in 3D!

Finally sitting and enjoying the parade!

This was what Cody and Luke were doing the entire time walking back to our hotel.

This was after day two of Disneyland on our drive back home.

We decided to stop and check out the new Newport Beach temple. It was really dark and most of the pictures didn't turn out really well. But once again my kids were being crazy in the picture, even at the Temple.

Even with the car breaking down, it was still a fun trip. We even got to spend a day at the beach with some friends from our ward. We ended up having about 8 families from our ward go to Disneyland the same time we did. We ran into just about all of them while at Disneyland and decided to meet two of the families at the beach the next day. These two families have kids all the same age as my kids and it turned out to be really fun having them their with us.