Disneyland, Revisited (Yet Again!!)

Yup, we went to Disneyland again (links to other trips can be found at the bottom of this post, and I’ll post a Lensbaby Disneyland link from this trip on March 20th with our Through the Lensbaby blog circle!). And I admit it, we miss it already! It truly is such a magical place to us, filled with a multitude of special memories of the past and the anticipation of making new ones we will cherish forever.

Even the drive down together is fun (if not long…)! This time was made extra special for Tom by the Shamrock shakes being back for the season at McDonalds (along with a snack-sized M&M McFlurry for Em and some fries for me (that were gone by the time I got around to taking photos!). And the paraphernalia that a modern family “needs” on the road cracked me up!

For the last several years we have made the Grand Californian our home while visiting the parks—the hotel itself is beautiful and the staff wonderful, and its proximity to the parks can’t be beat!

And our adventure begins in California Adventure first:

As a photographer, I think the myriad of photo ops at the parks is one of my favorite things about our trips—and my dear daughter is following in my footsteps on that front–we both have our trusty huge cameras slung over our shoulders while there, and I couldn’t be prouder!

Killing time in lines is even kinda fun, thanks in part to Ellen’s HeadsUp ap (I think perhaps she owes us a commission for all the sales we made her from the people around us ;-P)! And of course selfies (which are actually REALLY hard when back-button-focusing on a dSLR—our method is for me to hold the camera and press the BBF button, and Emily clicks the shutter!).

Almost every time we ride California Screamin’ I shoot from the hip—I have the settings down, now, so it’s just a matter of timing with pressing the shutter and not letting the camera slip so much that I am just taking photos of the inside of the car we’re in!); sometimes I get some fun ones!

This time we ate dinner at the Wine Country Trattoria and got fantastic premier seating for the World of Color—no one at our level was directly in front of us so I was able to get some great shots:

And of course we had to see Mickey:

And enjoy the pool while watching my loves swim (see my Minnie toes?):

We are not morning people, so getting up in time to make Early Entry into the parks is daunting, but we are always glad when we manage it—it’s definitely worth it! Look how empty it is—that’s not a sight you get to see too often!

Tom flew back ahead of us so as to not use too much vacation time, and Emily and I drove home the longer way via 101. We stopped in Santa Barbara for some dinner, girly shopping, and sunset at the beach, and then in San Luis Obispo for more girly shopping. All in all, a pretty darned perfect (and truly magical!!!!) trip!

If you are interested in any of our earlier Disney trips, here they are:

Trip with my sister and niece

As part of the Heritage Festival Choir Trip

April 2013 and Lensbaby shots here

First trip of 2013

From Emily’s perspective

My view of that trip, part 2

My view of that trip, part 1

And the rest of our trips were before I launched my blog, so no posts—one day I will have to write a post with our favorite images from the trips when she was littler…