we're not even Disney people.

i hate when vacation recaps take multiple blog posts, i really do. but...

43 photos i just can't edit out means i gotta do it. as Gilly says, sorry!

 Hayes has a long history with Winnie the Pooh (still can't sleep without two of them every night) and Cars (i don't even want to count how many times i've had to buy Lightning McQueen, he's the bobby pin of the toy industry. where do they all gooooo?!

so with two Disney-based obsessions under his belt people ask me ALL the time when we are going to take him to Disneyland. I honestly had no desire to until he and Cal were both tall enough to ride all the same rides and we could enjoy it all together as a family. 

but then, a family wedding in San Diego started morphing into the possibilities of a trip North to Anaheim, and knowing Russ' mom and sister would be with us made D-land seem doable. also the thought of Hayes falling out of love with Pooh Bear or Cars before he got to see them live and in action sort of broke my heart. so we bit the bullet. 

we started the journey off to Las Vegas and stayed the night. 

the boys made themselves right at home. first thing Cal does is pick up the phone, say "heh-whoa? i ahnt juice?" 

we also tried Hash House a Go Go which was killer. This was Hayes' child size flap jack. Russ had a chorizo hash, i had an even bigger than Hayes' banana and brown sugar pancake. if you go to Vegas, go to Hash House. it's amazing.

the next day we drove into Anaheim to our hotel across the street from the park. this was such a genius plan. walking to and from the park and not worrying about parking, and who had to stay or go made everything so easy. we walked them home for naps and brought them back when they woke up.

here's our hotel pool, and here's decent seats in the park watching the fireworks. awesome, right? although you can't hear the tunes from the pool, which made me bawl like a baby in happiness. Disney sure knows how to target a mom's heart. every song about chasing your dreams followed by Dumbo's "Baby Mine", i was just a wreck. i kept thinking and saying "we're not even Disney people!" you know the type, you might even be the type - like the lady in line ahead of us with a Grumpy Dwarf hat, shirt, shoes and fanny pack - we're just not those people. but, you can't deny the magic. we had a wonderful time.

in between trips to the park, meals, and off days, we lived at the pool. Cal has graduated water baby to absolute fanatic. he loves swimming, completely submerged, he flips and rolls, knows how to hold his breath, never coughs or chokes, and as usual has no fear. he was so fun to watch once we got that puddle jumper jacket on him. jacket-less he is absolutely terrifying.

 more vacation coming your way, aren't you lucky?!