Christmas- Part One

 Before I begin, please forgive me for not putting the pictures with this post. For some reason it is not letting me upload them. I will post them when I get it up and running.
This year for Christmas we loaded up a car full of excited kids, presents and everything other kind of excitement we could have packed into our suitcases. This year we went to Arizona for Christmas. We had a great excuse to go down this year, Camille's wedding.  Since there were so many of Lance's siblings that we planning to go for Christmas and since we had to drive the whole 18 hour drive we decided we better make it worth it and go down for more than just the wedding. We got there Saturday night, the 22nd. We celebrated Andrew's birthday with a cake that Grandma had ready for him the minute we walked through the door.
We had a great time! I can't remember the last time I really was excited for a big family trip. Don't get me wrong, I love family get togethers, but I am a home body. I could do without the traveling and just sit perfectly content and let everyone come to us. Well that only happens once in a blue moon. This trip I really didn't worry too much.
Christmas Eve rolled around and we got to talk to Elder Preston Snyder who is currently serving in Singapore. Technology is amazing. Lance and his brothers jimmy rigged the computers so we could skype with Preston as well as all the other families that were in their own homes for Christmas. We could all see each other. It was amazing! Preston looked so happy and he is being well taken care of by Sister Chris. A sweet member of the church over there in Singapore whose life mission is to serve the missionaries. Simply amazing! It was an emotional goodbye and Preston was the braver one to hang up first. So happy to see him. We sure miss him!!!!
Christmas Eve night just after we spoke to Preston, Santa showed up for our Christmas party. This year everyone did pretty good. Chiara, my niece was the only one scared of him so she and her dad hid behind the kitchen table and enjoyed the view from the floor. She eventually worked up the courage to go and sit on his lap realizing that he was a pretty good guy. Everyone got a pair of Christmas socks who sat on his lap. My boys loved that!
Christmas was busy. When you wake up on Christmas morning with a million people there opening gifts and the volume level is at its highest, you know its a good thing. I LOVED it! It was so nice to be with everyone. This year I didn't care about getting anything, in fact I didn't open anything on Christmas morning. I just got to sit back and watch all the kids enjoy the moment. That was worth it for me. Thanks Snyder's for such a great experience. I will always remember it!
So since Santa couldn't carry all the gifts for our children for Christmas down to Arizona we thought Disneyland would be the perfect gift for our kids since they have been asking us literally every night this past year, wondering if we had saved enough pennies to go. Seemed appropriate and so we jumped on it. Two days after Christmas, Disneyland we were bound. The drive was great, not too entertaining. We made it in mid afternoon and we had a fun time showing the kids around. We went swimming and walked around Downtown Disney. A man at our hotel told us it was only a 10 minute walk from the Hilton Hotel where we were staying to Downtown Disney. His time was way off because 30 minutes later our kids are dragging and just really tired. But we survived and had a great time. Being away on vacation does not bring many rested nights for our family. Our kids don't sleep well and Ellie was up all night our last night and it was just enough to make me go mad. Being up all night and then up all day carrying her and walking Disneyland. It was crazy. So this was our first time. They say Disneyland is magical right? I was still looking for that. I guess I didn't get too much out of it. My kids kept crying and complaining about different things and we had to constantly ask ourselves "This is the happiest place on earth right?" Well it was most of the time.
There were way too many people. In fact you couldn't really move around because it was back to back traffic through all the parks. I bet we only saw 25% of Disneyland. I was alittle disappointed that we didn't get to see more. But our kids had a good time. Besides waiting in line for an hour and half for each ride, the rides were pretty good. Some made me really sick. Star Tours was not my most favorite. I really enjoyed Pirates of the Carriabean and so did the kids. Ellie even sat still through it. I was surprised. I really loved Soaring California and the Cars ride was by far my most favorite. It had the longest line of a 3 hour wait. Man the first thing we did when we got to California Adventure was go straight to the fast pass line to get our ticket. It took about an hour in line to get it but it was worth it. I think California Adventure was my most favorite. I am still not sure. Next time we will go off season when there aren't so many people packed into one place. But the kids loved it and that was worth every long line.
Our first day was warm and sunny and our second day was cold and really rainy. We had to buy a lot of ponchos to keep us dry but then it cleared up and that was when we left. We headed back to Arizona to get ready for Aunt Camille's wedding on the 2nd of January. That will be in part two. Stay tuned.