Katie's visit to California! - Part 1 - Disneyland!

When I first heard that my best friend Katie's husband had a business trip to attend to in Iowa for 2 weeks, I felt bad for Katie... but then learning that she was thinking of coming to visit for 2 whole weeks, it wasn't so bad after all!!! I'm so glad Katie decided to come and visit us out in California. I feel very blessed to have been able to already see her and meet her babies twice since her move to Wisconsin less than a year ago. Her girls Adeliah and Maryann are already 9 months old. They are such little dolls, the most friendly, loving little baby girls! I just loved having them stay with us. We had lots of fun times with them being around and lots more pictures to come, but one really fun thing we got to do when they were here was take them to Disneyland! Our friend who works there was able to sign in Ian, Katie and her mom for free one day so we could all go together! Not only did I get to go with Katie and her mom, but this was the first time I had EVER been to Disneyland with Ian. Out of the WHOLE time I've known him, he's NEVER wanted to go. Silly him. Now that we have children, he's a little more open to the idea and admits he enjoyed himself. =P haha. The day started out rough for me because I worked so hard making sure we had everything we needed for the day with so many people and then I actually managed to forget my wallet at home! So I had to drive all the way back home and back to Disneyland, delaying me for about an hour. Kira was my little buddy though and went back home with me. During that hour everyone was able to get all signed in and went on Pirates of the Caribbean. That worked out perfectly anyway because Kira is scared of that ride. ha. So I got to meet up with everyone at the Jungle Cruise which is always such a funny ride to enjoy. As we were walking away from Jungle Cruise to head towards Fantasyland, we saw Jasmine and Aladdin power walking by! Ian was quick and caught glimpse of them so me and Kira went after them quickly and got to be about 5th in line to take a picture with them. This was so exciting because it is really rare to get to see them around the park! They are also our current obsession. We watch Aladdin on a DAILY basis around here. We sing a whole new world on a daily basis also. They are such loved characters. It was so much fun to get to meet them! And in this picture, you can see how cute Katie dressed her little girls. They had little matching minnie mouse outfits that had little ruffles around the legs and little minnie hats with pink bows. They were sooooo cute. There were soooooo many people who stopped to adore the babies that day, and they would get so excited when they realized there were 2!

Then we got to go to the Tiki Room which I hadn't been to for years. That was a fun experience, then we headed to the Peter Pan ride, Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, the Casey Junior train, and then Small World. Katie's mom was so sweet because during this time the twins fell asleep and she watched them so that the rest of us could enjoy the rides. Here's some pictures of our fun small world experience. This is by far one of my most favorite rides. It is so fun getting to sit all together in the boats and enjoying a nice long ride where the ride is actually longer than the wait time usually! The sights and sounds of this ride are absolutely phenomenal. Every time we experience this ride it is so spectacular. That's me holding Maryann as we

are going down the ramp to board the boats.

Here's Katie, Adeliah and her mom Stephanie holding Maryann.

Our family finally getting to sit all together. Most of the rides didn't have big

enough seats for us to all sit together.

I love how they have Woody and Jessie in small world now. They are so fun!

Here's a picture of me and Katie with some beautiful trees behind us and

Sleeping Beauty's castle also in the background.

Next we headed over to California Adventure Park where we got to go on

the Ariel ride a couple times. I love that ride! Katie video taped it so now we get to watch it anytime we want. The girls just love it! Thanks for doing that Katie!

So this next part was my FAVORITE part of this already spectacular day! We got to experience a live Aladdin show! This show was so impressive! We were actually in a big beautiful theater, experiencing a live broadway musical. It was an experience that makes Disneyland well worth the money just to see this show. We didn't have to wait too long. We got to sit in the orchestra seating section which was really really close to the front. We were probably only a few rows back towards the left of the theater so it was really great! The man that played the genie was so talented. He was cracking jokes left and right keeping the audience thoroughly entertained. Aladdin and Jasmine did a great job dancing and singing, and not to mention the magic carpet! I was really excited to see how they would portray the magic carpet. There was this little petite girl playing the magic carpet, she had a great costume and she was the most limber acrobatic person on the planet. She did such a great job. The show had us laughing and singing and clapping the entire time. The kids never took their eyes off the stage! So in these pictures you can see Jasmine in the background as well as the genie. Aladdin comes out into the audience on Abu as the elephant and interacts with the audience. This elephant looked so real, I had to take a double take at it to make sure it wasn't real! Aladdin waved right at us and Kira and Zoey were so excited to see "Bumbo" (comes from Dumbo... who represents all elephants). When the elephant left the stage, Kira actually said loudly, "where's dumbo??!!?" It was at such a perfect time too because the whole auditorium was dead silent right at that second! I think the genie might've actually heard Kira and we saw him snicker for a second. so funny! The show was so enjoyable. I would love to go back and see it again and I definitely recommend it to anyone going to California Adventure anytime soon!

After the show ended we snapped a picture of Ian and me because I loved our shirts we wore that day. I had a Snow White shirt on and Ian had a grumpy t-shirt on. Totally appropriate and cute. Snow White and grumpy have kind of a cute relationship. =PLastly, we got to experience Soaring Over California for the first time. Stephanie was so sweet to watch all 4 awake children so that Katie, Ian and I could go on it. It was so much fun smelling the oranges and smelling the river as we flew over different scenes of California while I got to hold hands with Ian and Katie. =) It really meant a lot to me and the kids too to have Ian there experiencing Disneyland with us. It really is a magical place, especially for the children. Kira was feeling the same thing I was because she asked me, "why didn't Daddy ever come with us before?!" Like, what a good idea this was! It was fun getting to switch around who we would sit by on the different rides all day. Katie's twins were so good too. They really were little troopers having to spend a lot of time in their stroller and not getting to crawl around and explore like they like to do. Ian and I both took turns helping Katie hold the girls. We even got to trade kids for awhile when we were riding Dumbo. Ian and I took our girls on Dumbo and Maryann I think it was, then Katie had our 2 girls with her and then Ian and I held the babies. So our girls got to ride twice. How fun for them! After we got out of Disneyland that night, Stephanie treated us all to a dinner at Hometown Buffet to thank us for hooking her and Katie up with tickets. It was a super yummy dinner and it was so enjoyable to spend all that time with Katie and her mom. We are so lucky!