The day after graduation, we boarded a plan with Grandma and headed for California! It was a long needed vacation and we had so much fun riding rides at Disneyland, playing at the beach, visiting family and seeing the animals at SeaWorld.
Disneyland
We spent our first 4 nights in California at the Disneyland Hotel. It was great to be surrounded by the magic 24 hours a day and it made our Disneyland days a lot easier being able to run back to the room for a quick nap or a swim. The pool was all decked out in a pirate theme and Rylee loved the slide!
The first couple of days we spent inside the Disneyland half of the park. Rylee was so funny with the rides. She would sit in my lap and cling to my arms all the way through each of the rides, sometimes even crying a little, but as soon as we stood up to leave she would say "That fun!" and laugh. What a silly girl!
Here we are in Downtown Disney and waiting to get into the parks:
We debated what ride to take Rylee on first. I was worried that if we picked something that scared her she wouldn't want to get on another ride for the rest of the trip. So we picked Small World for her very first ever Disneyland ride. She liked it for about 2 minutes, with all the colors and music, and then she got bored. We learned after that to pick some more exciting rides for her! We rode Pirates of the Carribean 4 times (it's my favorite) and I got to take Ry on Dumbo:
We tried to get Ry to stand with some of the characters for pictures, but everytime we got close to one she would cry, "No, no!" So we compromised and took pictures of us with them in the background.
As expected, we did a LOT of waiting. Rylee was great, though. Grandma bought her a Tinkerbell phone, so we spent a lot of time calling Tinkerbell and Grandpa while we waited. She liked watching all of the people around her and there is always lots of music and activity to keep the little ones busy. Here we are at the entrance of Main Street and waiting to ride Nemo:
Then we took Rylee to Toontown. She loved that everything was a giant playground! We walked through Mickey's house, played in Goofy's garden, and climbed in Chip and Dale's treehouse. She sat in the cars and let me take all the pictures I wanted!! She didn't want to leave when it was time to go.
California Adventures
On our third day in the parks we went over to California Adventures. They have a little corner tucked away for the little ones called "A Bug's Land" that is themed after "A Bug's Life". It has a few rides and several little water areas. Chad took Ry on the train (which she laughed all the way through) and then we rode the ladybug teacups. Then I got to take her in the flying snack boxes. Her favorite, though, was by far the water areas. They sprayed the water out of fountains and sprinklers and we let her run through until she was soaked from head to toe. She was so exhausted after all that she fell asleep sitting up!
We also went to visit the guys from Cars. Since these were the only "characters" Rylee would stand next to we had to take a few pictures!
Unfortunately, Grandma got really sick the last day we were at Disneyland. So while she rested at the hotel, Chad, Rylee and I took one last trip out to Disneyland to eat a churro and ride a couple rides and see the castle one last time.
