Disneyland and the 24-hour day

Nathan and I took advantage of the kids staying the night at Grandma and Papa’s house one Friday night in May by heading out to Disneyland on a date. Luckily it coincided with Disneyland’s 24-hour day of operation to celebrate the upcoming Monster’s University movie release. I thought it would be really fun to be a part of that. Of course, we didn’t actually stay the whole 24 hours, although I know there are die-hard fans out there who did. The park opened at 6am Friday morning and stayed open until 6am Saturday morning. We were there for 6 of the 24 hours, and I felt good about that. ;)

We got there and immediately got in line for the Tower of Terror, since that is my favorite ride at the park. As we had to spend over an hour in line, we were happy to not have kids with us! Not to mention they’d be terrified to go on the ride anyway.

It was really fun, we had a good set of drops! Afterwards, we decided to head to Disneyland park, as there was a grad night going on that same night and a lot of the California Adventure areas were going to be off-limits to us. So we headed to a ride that I actually had not ridden since I was about 8 years old – the Matterhorn! It’s so silly but I just hadn’t gotten around to riding it, since it had been under construction for a while and there is no way I could go on one of my solo trips with the kids because they’d refuse, so I just hadn’t had the chance to go yet. Luckily it was just as I remembered it and lots of fun!

(As you can tell by the horrible photo, apparently I was *really* excited to be on the ride at last!)

After the Matterhorn we decided to get some food so we headed over to the Bear Country restaurant and staked out a table way in the back, on the river.

We ordered funnel cakes along with dinner and enjoyed having a chance to be away from all the crowds. Because holy moly, it was CROWDED! I know the last 24-hour park day was not this crowded, but I think it’s because they were doing the grad night at the same time, which is crazy if you ask me.

But anyway, so we had this little table in the back to ourselves, right on the river, when the Fantasmic show started. Turns out where we were was a perfect spot to watch the fireworks, and we even got to see the Mark Twain riverboat loaded with characters that were through with their part of the show, but were slowly floating by us in complete darkness. The best part was that they knew people could still see them, so they kept in-character and waved to us as I snapped a few pictures. Of course, I only had my dinky point and shoot with me, so none of them really turned out, but here’s one that kind of shows you what it was like.

Kind of cool!

After eating, we moseyed around looking for things to do that weren’t terribly crowded or had really long lines. First we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride because I wanted to show Nathan the hidden Mickeys in there. Then we walked and walked and ended up stopping at the Tomorrowland Terrace to listen to a band that was playing there. We had a fun time rocking out for a while.

Once the band was done, Nathan was pretty much done for the night, so we headed out. But not without taking our photo in front of the Monstrous Summer banner so we can always remember we made it! Ha, too bad the photo turned out terrible! I hope the one the “pros” caught is better.

All in all, we definitely had a great time and I’m looking forward to going again with just Nathan during our anniversary in August!

Tom got hitched!

My little brother got married last month and I was so happy that it was here in California so that I could have a chance to see all my family out here. We did lots of fun things, but this post is about his wedding. The day was beautiful, they had perfect weather (I remember standing outside the temple and while it was hot, it was also breezy so it was really nice.), and lots of family around. They were married in the Los Angeles temple and had a morning ceremony. The hubby and I were lucky enough to have his parents watch our kids so we could go to the sealing and not have to worry about who would watch them at the temple. Of course, all of the photos I took that morning are on a memory card that Jeff had to borrow, so I don’t have any pictures of the temple. Yet. I’ll try and update this post as soon as I get them back and edit them up.

The group photos were fun and I’ve seen a few of the individual photos of Tom and Britania, and they look really cute.

Once the sealing was done, we headed out in lots of lovely California traffic to go to their luncheon at a cute little barbeque place. Once the bride and groom decided to grace us with their presence, we had toasts and heard some fun stories about Tom and Britania (individually and as a couple). One of Tom’s good friends even wrote in a toast to be read at the luncheon, as he couldn’t be there that day. It was really cute. Here are some shots from the luncheon.

Warning: HUGE overload of photos coming your way.

 

 

 

There were some really sweet stories and Britania’s Mom is holding up a picture she made for them that is a quote from a fortune cookie Britania received while having dinner with Tom and her parents. Her mother kept the slip of paper even though they weren’t seriously dating at that point (at least, I think that’s the story, ha.). It reads: “A new relationship is about to blossom. You will be blessed.” Luckily for Britania, the fortune came true!

After the luncheon we picked up our boys from my in-laws and headed to the reception. It was held at Britania’s family’s stake center and they did a wonderful job with it. Everything was beautiful and we had a lot of fun dancing and eating the night away! Here are some more photos to share.

It was so fun to get to celebrate Tom’s wedding to Britania and we’re so happy to have a new sister in the family! :)