We've been home over two weeks and I haven't even wanted to post any pictures. You know why? Because then I have to admit that it's over, that all my planning for the last year and a half has come to an end. Don't get me wrong, our trip was amazing, and I loved it all. So here goes some of it. If you don't want to read my lengthy tips then skip over the blue italicized font.
Tip: I love countdowns and of course never took a picture of our families countdown, but I'll try to describe it. I cut out Mickey Mouse head shapes on colored paper and wrote numbers from 20 down to 0 and put fun trivia about Disneyland on the backs of them. Then I taped them to the wall where we could see them easily. Each day we would pull one off and the boys would try to answer the question or we would search for it in this book. 
I love this book and carried it around Disneyland for the first two days.
This was the first airplane ride (at least that they remember) for all the boys. I always wanted that to be part of the experience because I love flying and my first flight was when I was 22 and I was giddy the whole time. I still am!
We flew out of Bellingham on a smaller plane and switched 35 minutes later in Seattle.
Tip: If you live in Northwestern Washington it is well worth it to fly out of Bellingham. The airport is small, the workers are less stressed and friendly. In fact when I was discovered to have a knife in my backpack, they let me run it out to my car instead of confiscating it. The parking is cheaper and closer and for us it was not much difference in distance to SeaTac or Bellingham. Surprisingly our flights were cheaper out of Bellingham than Seattle even though we flew out of Seattle, too. Overall this airport has a "quaint" feeling that helps you feel okay if your kids are ramming their cars off the window sills.When we touched down in Seattle, we saw this Boise State plane which was the coolest thing to Caleb who is a huge Boise State fan.
We flew into the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA and had to snap a picture with the cowboy himself while we were waiting for our rental car.
Tip:, this is the closest and best airport to fly into if you're going to Disneyland. We had many more affordable options for getting our family of six to our hotel in Anaheim. Tip: As we were searching for the best deal to get us to our hotel we looked into the the Disneyland Resort Express, taxi, shuttles, even a limousine service. I wish it would have been my idea, but Mike decided to look into a rental car, even though we didn't need one while we were at Disneyland. This ended up being the cheapest option for us. We paid $60 for one day, we were able to stop at the grocery store and stock up our kitchen, and we could return the car near our hotel. 
I have no pictures of the WorldMark resort we stayed in (with a huge thank you to Mike's parents:), but it was amazing. Having six in your family you either have to rent two hotel rooms or find a place like this. We had two bedrooms/bathrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. Before Mike's parents offered to let us use their resort points, I had looked into other options including vacation rentals. Having a kitchen was a huge blessing. We were able to have good breakfasts, make lunches occasionally, and have the option to cook dinner. And the pool at the Anaheim resort is great. They have a shallow kid pool, a larger, deeper pool, and large hot tub, and a smaller one. They even had one on the roof where you could see the Disneyland fireworks.
Our first day at Disneyland was a Monday and can you guess what our first ride was? Yep, we dashed to Space Mountain as soon as they dropped the rope to let us in. I realized as we started this ride it was probably not the best choice to introduce my 4 year-old Kimball to Disneyland. He's not a big fan of dark and this entire ride is in the dark. Although he let us know right after in his matter-of-fact tone "I did not like that ride" he did agree to go on it 3 more times the next few days. As for Andrew it was his favorite ride and over the three days we probably rode it 12 times.
That leads me to another
Tip: If you can, travel with someone who is willing to run, who you trust with all your Disneyland tickets, and who is responsible enough for you to send on their own and not get lost. My 12 year-old Gabe fit this description exactly. The FastPass system at Disneyland lets you cut almost to the front of the line within a certain hour. Even though Disneyland was not extremely busy while we were there, having FastPasses ensured that we never waited in line more than 20 minutes for any ride. Besides that, we were able to ride every ride we wanted to numerous times while we were there. I will leave you with one last
Tip: If you hate crowds or have a husband who hates them, take your kids out of school and go in February, or October or whenever no one else will be there. We live near Seattle and can handle the rain and on a Wednesday at Disneyland with rain, we had the park to ourselves. It was fun and worth it to miss a few days of school. We saw how long the lines can be and I kept reminding Gabe (who was slightly unhappy about missing school) that we would have been waiting in lines longer than we got to enjoy the rides if we came when school was out. 
We never actually rode on King Arthur's Carousel but we did go on Peter Pan's flight which is where we are waiting in this picture. I was soo, soo happy to be there!
Next I will do a post on our favorites, so stay tuned.
Our favorite ride as a family that we must have rode close to 20 times was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's a roller-coaster train that takes you through old mine towns, into mine shafts, and into the desert. It was scary enough for the big boys and mild enough that Kimball loved it. "It's the wildest ride in the wilderness."
Most of us loved the Tower of Terror which takes you up several stories and drops you down while telling a great story and scaring the bejeebies out of you. You will realize as I write this that Mike is a wimp when it comes to the "scary rides" which worked out great for us because Kimball didn't love this one either.
My favorite picture was taken by the automatic picture taker on Splash Mountain. I tried to take a picture of the picture because I wasn't about to fork out $20 for it. These three faces say it all!
My absolute favorite ride was in Disneyland's California Adventure called California Screamin'. It is a roller coaster that starts you out with a countdown 3-2-1 and then shoots you at speeds up to 55 mph before starting uphill. Yea, Mike never even wanted to try this ride. I caught Gabe and Caleb as the countdown was on.
This ride was pure fun. If you hate roller coasters that are jerky, klunky, and throw you around (like me) then you'll love this smooth, non-jarring ride. It just makes me smile.
