A Family Trip to Disneyland
My favorite yearly tradition is creating a photo book from the previous year. As I'm sure you could guess, we take a lot of photos and I wanted a way to bring them to life, and have tangible copies without having the walls of our home look like one giant Instagram feed. To help stay organized, I create a shared photos album on my phone so Kyle and I can both drop our favorite photos in it throughout the year. Earlier this week, I finally got around to creating our shared album and started moving some of my images over from 2019 so far.
As I did this, I got to relive the last few months through photos and wanted to share a few from a recent family vacation to Disneyland. This is not a what to see/do kind of post - while I've been several times I'm by no means a Disneyland expert - but it was a special experience seeing our oldest niece experience the park for the first time.
Kyle's mom has wanted to do a family Disney trip for some time, so for Christmas this year our big family present was this trip. In all, we spent about five days in California enjoying a bit of sunshine and getting in some good quality time together.
Disney is so different from how I remember it as a kid. I remember it being busy but not like it is now. To be honest, I was a little nervous to go because of all the people and long lines - we usually spend vacations trying to avoid crowds. However, seeing Gabbi's face light up despite all the people and chaos, and seeing she still experienced the same magic I did as a kid is worth waiting in any line for.
This was my first time going to the California adventure side of the park. As an adult I think I liked this side even better and could probably be easily convinced to go back once the Marvel area opens.
I know the rides, food, and entertainment are what the park is really all about, but I have to say my favorite thing about Disneyland is just simply the building of it - all the intricate details and design that goes into every building, ride, and eye-catching backdrop. I could spend hours meandering around looking at everything and never get tired of it.
In the days following our Disney adventure, Kyle's parents booked a beach house outside Huntington Beach - perfect for a little R&R. In true Kyle fashion, he rented us a motorcycle for a few days, so we took a day trip to Laguna. While there we looked at several art galleries (they have a National Geographic gallery and it's the best thing EVER), had some lunch, and enjoyed being in a temperature above 40 degrees.
While down there, I also got to visit one of my best friends and her husband, and I got to see one of my cousins and her kiddos (WHY didn't I take any photos of that?!) This is the first big family trip we've done and even with a 5 year old and 7 month old, it went pretty smooth and everyone had a great time. Now, if only some of those warmer temperatures would head up north...