DISNEYLAND!!

This year Scarlet and I had our 3 & 30 Birthday!! I kinda have a thing with numbers, so on the day she was born I started thinking about all the fun year birthdays we might have together, and there will be 2!! I mean.. every birthday will be fun, let's be honest! But there will only be TWO birthdays where years compliment each other! One of those being our 3rd & 30th! (The other is our 23rd & 50th!! (Her golden birthday) but 50!? Yikes! Let's just say that's FOR-EVER away shall we;)) Anyway! So.. back to the day she was born, and I realized this fun birthday would be one awesome excuse to celebrate, so I've had some pretty epic things in the works, only adding to it as the years went on!

Well, fast forward 2 and a half years, I'm pregnant with Harvey, and Brandon finds me up at a super random hour of the night, and what am I loosing sleep over?? A new baby coming into the family you ask? Probably my charlie horses keeping me up again? Perhaps the fact that my favorite little baby girl will no longer be the baby anymore?? NO!! The 3 & 30 PARTY!! Actually approaching!! Only 6 MONTHS AWAY!! Thankfully Brandon knew just what to say (doesn't he always?) to help bring me back to reality and help me realize we still have time to plan. Also, he brought up the idea of possibly blowing off this elaborate party (WHAT!?) And doing something WAY crazy like a family trip or something!! Again, again, just ideas but something I could think about for the next few months until we made it through other big life events, like.. I don't know.. the birth of our 2nd child!! (Yikes!!)

Alright, now, 4-5 months later, Harvey was safely here, and my sweet brother and his beautiful wife were married (why have I not blogged about this yet??), and I finally had a second to realize...3 & 30 was coming and it was time to get going!!! I had a list of must-haves like the photo booth, and ice cream machine, and bouncy house, but then.. things started getting added to the list I just really didn't anticipate, like.. I started reading.. did you know you're supposed to get separate mechanical bull renters insurance for your mechanical bull rental?! Wait..what!? And how can you get a guaranteed perfect night in October!? So now we needed to rent tents or have a back up venue ready! And then who KNOWS how many people would come! It was the weekend before Halloween after all! People have plans! So how crazy big did we want this really, and who should we even invite?! It was just becoming a lot more then I anticipated and one night after estimating the overall total of this grand event, Brandon looked at me and said.. "Babe, you know I support this party 100%, but.. are you suuure you wouldn't want to just use the money for a family trip to Disneyland??" I looked up from my paper full of ridiculous number and without hesitation said, "Yes Please!" Haha!!

We've had some wonderful friends have great success using Costco to plan their trips to the most wonderful place on earth, so we thought we'd give them a shot, and less then a week later everything was booked and reserved and the perfect birthday/family vacation was ready to go!!

We decided to tell Scarlet about Disneyland, instead of the cute way a lot people do it by telling them on the way to the airport, or in the car, because I really didn't think she was quite old enough to really understand what Disneyland was, so I wanted to have the couple of months to really explain it to her, and to properly get her excited for it.

I thought it might be fun to make this chain, so she could see the days get closer and closer, she didn't quite get it at first, but when there was only a little over a week left she really started to get excited! And every morning she would ask if she could "tear off the Mickey yet so we could go to Disneyland!!"

Another thing we were a little worried about was taking Harvey. We had so many good intentioned friends and family wish us luck! Haha!! Which obviously just made us really nervous! Haha!! Luckily, Harvey just happened to be the absolute PERFECT age of baby to take to Disneyland! I KNOW he enjoyed it!! And we definitely enjoyed it more having him there! He was too little to have any desire to want to wander in any way, and he slept just perfectly in his little carrier seat. He loved the rides! All the colors and music were so exciting to him! And he laughed so hard when he met Mickey and Goofy and Chip and Dale! It was just SO incredible to see him come so alive to something other then us!

Both kids were CHAMPS on the flight out! We were definitely SO proud of them!

We landed in California On Tuesday and headed straight to California Adventure. We grabbed fast passes to the World of Color because we'd heard that was amazing, and then Harvey was ready for food so we decided to go to the Disney Junior show to get some down time to feed him. Can I just say.. that was the absolute PERFECT way to start Disneyland for us. It. Was. AMAZING!!! Scarlet had fallen asleep in the stroller, and then stayed asleep on Brandon while we waited in line to get in the show and Brandon and I looked at each other like.. oh no.. she's ALREADY too tired!?! It is going to be a LOONG couple of days.

But as soon as the music started to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse she just woke right up and had THE hugest smile on her face! She's hardly ever even watched that show, but she was just SO excited!!! She danced and sang and played along, I'll admit it! I cried!! It. Was. AMAZING!! Just so incredibly magical!! Scarlet LOVES Sofia and there was a part in the play when she comes on the stage and Scarlet was just magnetized and slowly started walking towards the stage because she wanted to go hug her. Haha! It was just so sweet!! Harvey even got into it!! Smiling and screaming along in the excitement! It was perfect!!

Before we left I read online that if you buy some toys to bring along it can help curb the constant begging for things I'm sure would've come from Scarlet (it worked PERFECTLY by the way!! I TOTALLY recommend that little trick) and the first toy we decided to give her was a Sofia amulet, and we told her Sofia was sad she couldn't come out and meet her but she wanted to give her this amulet that looks like hers for an early birthday present! It was like THE best thing that had ever happened to her!! She's hardly taken it off since! Only when we make her for bed time and church, but don't you worry! She's always reminding us how "King Roland told me to never take it off!!" every time we try!! Haha!! I just love that girl!

Luckily, Scarlet was 40 inches exactly with her shoes!! We were hardly ever stopped to check and when we were she'd pass with flying colors! She loved all the rides! But her absolute favorite was the Ariel ride! While I saved a spot with Harvey for the World of Color, she rode it over and over with Brandon! Such a good dad!

The next day was spent at Seal Beach! Of course, a California trip wouldn't be complete without a beach day! And that beach day was DEFINITELY no exception! It was WONDERFUL! The waves were CRAZY!! So there really wasn't much water play. They crashed SO hard and loud it sounded like thunder! And the rip tides were so strong it almost made us loose footing at times! So there was a VERY strict rule of no going near the water without hold mommy or daddy's hand! Which really wasn't a big deal to Scarlet because she preferred playing in the sand anyway! Holy cow was there sand EVERYWHERE when that girl was done! We washed sand out of her hair and toes for days! After we went to lunch at a really delicious little place called The Hangout! We had an amazing server and the fish 'n chips and club sandwich we had were absolutely incredible!

After a nice nap at the Best Western Stovall (Super awesome hotel by the way! We LOVED it there and would definitely consider staying there next time too!) We got all dressed up to go to Mickey's Halloween Party! We had a whole lot of fun there, and definitely loaded up on candy, but if we're being honest it was probably one of the only times we felt like that it was something we didn't need to go to with the kids (especially their ages). They were SO tired! And there were so many people there it was really hard to get around with the stroller. Before an hour in Scarlet just stayed in the stroller to collect her candy because she was just too tired to walk around to get it. It felt pretty silly pushing her in a stroller to get candy. Come on girl!! You gotta work for that stuff some how!! Haha!! It WAS super fun to be all dressed up at Disneyland though! And beside the hilarious Splash Mountain event! The most memorable part of the evening was when she got to meet Aladdin! She had dressed up like Jasmine, and she was so excited to meet him! She kept saying, "Mom! He REALLY likes me! Because I. Am. JASMINE!!" She wasn't wrong though! He definitely thought she was quite amazing!

The next day was it!! Our 3 & 30 day!! We surprised Scarlet when she woke up with some new friends waiting for her on her bed along with a whole bunch of balloons! We hurried and got dressed and headed out to Disneyland before it opened so we could get in line to get some fast passes to meet Anna and Elsa. I'm really glad I didn't mention this to Scarlet before hand, because the line.. was.. CRAZY!!! It wrapped so far around the park, I thought for SURE it was a joke!! I couldn't even believe it! So we decided to bag that and just start riding some rides. Our first ride was Pirates of the Caribbean and after the trauma of Splash Mountain from the night before (it got her Jasmine Costume wet!!) she really wasn't a super big fan. Haha! She was so worried with it being a water ride that she was going to get all wet. Luckily, she warmed up real quick and had a blast the rest of the day!

We had lunch at The Blue Bayou!! I've ALWAYS wanted to go there, ever since my mom pointed out when I was a lot younger that it was a restaurant on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride! So we decided to trade in the mechanical bull ride check on my bucket list to meal at the Blue Bayou check instead! And I would say that it was MORE then a good trade! :)

After lunch we spend a lot of time in Fantasyland! All of the rides were Harvey friendly as well, so we had a whole lot of time riding together as a family!

We finished our amazing day at Goofy's Kitchen for dinner! Again, another experience SO magical it brought tears to our eyes!

I think it's safe to say that Disneyland was the absolute perfect way to spend our 3 & 30 Birthday!!