The Disneyland Report

At this time 9 days ago I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve. Excited. Anxious. Energized. Restless. Why? Because I was in a car on the way to "the happiest place on earth." Thats right friends, we went tooooooo... DISNEYLAND!!!!

It all started a few weeks back when Rachel decided was just itching to make the trip. Back in April the Thompson's did what they do best and made their trip to Disneyland... sans Rachel. She just couldn't take it anymore. So she called up her uncle who works for Disney and just like that, we suddenly miraculously had four free tickets and a plan. Less than 2 weeks of school flew by and before we knew it we were sprinting from ride to ride wondering, how did we even get here?! 

It was the BEST. 18 hours of straight fun. No naps. No breaks (unless you count riding the train while we ate our lunch). Tower of Terror. California Screamin'. Thunder Mountain. Splash Mountain. Matterhorn. Big freaky swingy ferris wheel. Cars Land - which by the way is new and SO sweet. Swings. The Tiki Room. The river ride. Pirates of the Caribbean. The Haunted Mansion. Soarin' Over California. World of Color. Firework show. And so much more. We did everything we wanted to do. And guess what... we did it almost without waiting in any lines. No, we did not have VIP passes. No, it was not an empty day at the parks (quite the contrary, actually). But we did have a secret magical power that told us exactly where to be and when to be there so that we could avoid lines and get to everything that we wanted to. The average line wait time for us was probably 10-15 minutes, even for the most popular and crowded attractions. We rode California Screamin' twice in a row and walked right on both times. I tell you, it was amazing. And we got the best little system down for going from ride to ride. We had our matchy matchy shirts on and we each had a backpack on and between each ride, one of us would take the lead and start running and weaving through the crowd. We each latched on to the backpack in front of us and away we went! It took some skill to stay on balance and in line, but we mastered the technique before long.

At the end of the day, our feet were tired and our bodies were dead, but our spirits were renewed. For an entire day we immersed ourselves in the joy of disney. For an entire weekend we ditched school and our Provo/Rexburg lives and soaked up the fun of a road trip. Friendships were strengthened. Memories were made. Its a weekend we'll never forget!

Load up the car, and here we goooo!!!!

 Prius = amazing gas milage. I spent less than $100 for the weekend - including gas, food, motel, AND GOING TO DISNEYLAND/CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE.

We made it!!

Disneyland was all decorated for Halloween which was super cool.

Yeah baby. First ride. Toy Story. We are really here. Lets do it.

 California Screamin' take one.

 California Screamin' take two.

California Screamin' take THREE.

 Tower of Terror.

{Jealous yet? ;-)}

Splash Mountain.

Swings!! Unfortunately we did this following two times on California Screamin' and the swingy ferris wheel... my tummy needed a little break for a while so I could feel 100% again. Weak sauce, I know.

The very center of Disneyland.

 The rain and clouds dampened our clothes and hair, but not our spirits! SO happy to be there!

World of Color was without a doubt one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I was blown away. It gave me happy goose bumps so many times as I was reminded of some of my childhood favorites from Disney. Awesome awesome awesome. I would totally youtube it so you can see more of what it is all about if you've never seen it.

Monday morning dawned and we were back to reality. Its not surprising however that some of us slept in and skipped a few classes throughout the day. Disneyland (and Rachel's awesome uncle) gave us an incredible and once in a lifetime gift last weekend, and we will forever be grateful :)