Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Disney!!!!!!

Back in January (yes, I know how far behind I am) we took a family vacation with most of the Christensen siblings down to California for some M-I-C-K-E-Y time! My aunt is a fantastic travel agent and found a terrific deal for all of us on a week long cruise on the Disney Wonder. We went a few days early so the boys could experience Disneyland for the first time, then boarded our boat for a Mexican adventure. I honestly wasn't sure how the boys were going to do, both on land and at sea, considering they are still only 3 years old, but they ended up having a blast!

Our whole family in front of "Mickey's house" as the boys call it. Every time they see it now on a movie they get so excited and say "We've been there!!" The second pic is of my three boys at the entrance to Disneyland. The boys weren't so sure what to make of the whole thing at first honestly. There were lots of people, hot weather, and scary roller coasters all over the place! Lucas especially was a little freaked out. We took the whole family on the Nemo ride at the very beginning of the day, thinking the little kids would LOVE that one. Well, most of them did. Lucas had a mini breakdown and refused to do any other rides for the rest of the day. :) He just didn't like the dark, and was scared of every building that we went in. So, him and I hung out a lot of the time considering I couldn't go on most of them either (thanks Skittles! :) ), while Daddy and all of the other cousins and aunts and uncles went on rides. We still had a great time though. And of course the best part for the boys was meeting Mickey and all of the other characters. They LOVED Mikey's house, and would probably have stayed in Toontown all day if we let them. :) Buzz was super fun too!
Finally by the end of the day, I convinced Lucas to go on the "car ride" with me (Autopia), telling him that the whole thing was outside and we wouldn't be dark at all. He finally relented when he realized he could actually drive his very own car and Mommy wouldn't help him at all. :) This was his face during the whole ride!!! He absolutely loved it, and that was all he wanted to do the whole rest of our time there. I was so glad that he had a good time as well, and he had me laughing hysterically every single time we went on the ride. He thought that every bump we hit was hilarious and both of us were crying laughing by the time it was done. :)
The last night of Disneyland, we splurged with the rest of the family and had dinner at the restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It was a really fun experience and we had a great time together. I definitely want to go back there!
On Sunday, we drove down to the cruise terminal in LA and boarded our Disney Wonder!
The boys weren't so sure what to make of everything at first. We had a tiny room with no windows, and there was water all around us! Kind of a new experience for them. :) Teage and I had never been on a cruise before either, so none of us really new what to expect.


Our week was really fun on the boat. We sailed down through Mexico with stops in Cabo San Lucas and Puerta Vallerta. We were supposed to stop in Mazatlan as well, but with all of the violence happening there, Disney modified our trip just a bit, which was fine by me. :) The week actually went by really quickly. The boys swam in the Mickey pool every single day, even when it wasn't the warmest in the world. They loved playing soccer and basketball on the top deck with Daddy, playing ping pong, watching the shows in the evening, and of course, meeting all of the characters. I have so many pictures of characters I could possibly fill three entries! I think that was their favorite part by far. They thought they were so special that the characters would want to come on "their" boat with them! There was a play area where we could drop the kids off for a while, but the boys didn't like it much, so we just spent every day together as a family (I loved it!). I love this picture of Teage with Captain Jack Sparrow......they were trying to intimidate each other the whole time. :) And the third pic is of all of the cousins together (minus 4 month old Mila) in the amazing Mickey pool. They all had so much fun together!


Of course the whole week we ate ourselves silly......a perfect situation for Teage and his siblings! :) These pictures were from the formal night we had on the ship where everyone dressed up and had a fancy dinner. I am so glad we got a picture of the whole Christensen Clan on the formal night......aren't we a handsome group? :)


During the last stop at Cabo San Lucas we decided to get off and explore a bit. I was thankful to get off of the ship for a little while, and the day was a really nice one. We walked around for a while and went to a few markets with Teage's family. Then Tawna's family, Sunni, and our family decided to rent a little boat and get up close and personal with the ocean life of Mexico. I am so thankful we did, I think this was one of my very favorite experiences of our whole trip. We saw sea lions up close, had a glass bottom on our boat to see all of the fish, and the boys absolutely LOVED it! I was worried they would be scared by the boat, but they had an absolute blast! Then the driver dropped us off on the beach for about an hour to hang out and play in the water. Dylan loved the ocean and was hooked the minute we got off the boat. Lucas wasn't so sure, but still had a great time on the beach with me. The third picture down is one of my favorites....Dylan being swung up in the air by Daddy on a beach in Mexico....love it! He had such a great time!


These last ones are from our very last night on the ship. We had a great dinner and said goodbye to our amazing server and assistant server (Line from France and Julio from Mexico) who we loved! They were so good to us all week and we had a lot of fun with them.....what good sports with all of our crazy kids! Overall, we had a wonderful week. It was fabulous to spend some time with the Christensen family, experience something new on our cruise, and just watch the boys light up with excitement every time Mickey came around the corner. Their adorable faces are priceless. Thanks for making our big family trip a successful one Mickey!


1 comment:

Tawna said...

I want to do this again!!! Thanks for letting me know you got this up -- I needed my Get-Up-And-Go button restarted. You did a great job capturing a fun week together. Loves!