Take This, Jenny's Disneyland Blog

As many of you know, I visited sunny California with Adam, Ben and Steve a few weeks ago. I've driven to California, oh, eighteen times since I moved to Utah in 2001, but never with three boys. Needless to say, it was a vastly different experience. Given that Adam was involved, the trip had to be as high-tech as possible, complete with internet in the car, dvd player, GPS, and a radar detector:

GPS was pretty controversial because Adam insisted on using GPS directions for places I already knew how to get to, and I was very bad at listening to what the polite woman on the dashboard instructed me to do. To Adam's credit, though, I was completely sold on GPS by the end of the trip. Directions aside, it tracks your average speed, moving time, and other helpful stats, and you can use it to find the closest anything and then make it tell you how to get there. We used to joke that Tyler and Jeff could find the nearest 7-11 in any city in the world. Well, GPS actually could. And did.

Anyway, the following is a photo journal of those four glorious days. I already want to go back, which is convenient since Bridget and I have a trip planned two weeks from today :)Is there anything more satisfying than the view of Provo fading slowly behind you?

High on the thrill of quitting Best Buy and his first vacation in a year. He hides it well.


Vegas is gross. I will never understand the draw.


Speaking of gross. Literally one of our very first views in Orange County. You're welcome.



Jenny challenged us to beat her "impressive" Disneyland record of fourteen rides set the previous weekend with Maddi and Michon. Anxious to out-do her (and update her on our progress throughout the day through various taunting text and multimedia messages), we left bright and early, making it to the gate about 20 minutes after the park opened. Our secret? Efficient usage of fast-pass distribution. I think I could write a research paper about the sophisticated techniques we employed. A special thanks to Steve, my junior fast-pass analyst.

1. Indiana Jones, round one, 8:40 a.m. I'm really disappointed in the changes they made to the end of the ride. Lame.

2. Jungle Cruise

3. Indiana Jones, part deux

4. Buzz Lightyear (I am lame)

5. Star Tours

6. Big Thunder Mountain. This is my best attempt to intimidate Steve into ceasing his continual candid-shot-taking. It didn't work.
7. Pirates of the Caribbean (woot woot!)

8. Space Mountain
9. Splash Mountain, aka Typhoon Mountain. The woman in front of Ben was wearing a garbage bag and was mumbling the entire time about how she didn't want to get wet. Of course, we got completely soaked, to the point that my cell phone has been glitchy ever since.
10. Autopia

11. Buzz Lightyear again. Steve, who once wrote a statistics paper about the merits of different MarioKart characters, smoked all of us at defeating the evil Zurg.

12. Honey I Shrunk the Audience. After Splash Mountain, I forced Adam to wear my sweatshirt like that in hopes it would dry out before dark.

13. Haunted Mansion
14. Pirates of the Caribbean

Since we had already beaten Jenny and were still completely soaked from Hurricane Mountain, we decided to take a quick afternoon break. We ran home to Wini and George's to change out of our squishy shoes and grab some dinner. The tension as we took this next picture was palpable, with Steve ready to pounce if the kindly 50-year-old man behind the lens took off with his 3-day-old camera.
15. Tiki Room, which we really hyped to Ben as a classic. I don't think he understood. I'm not sure what this random stone shrine is supposed to be, but Steve felt compelled to take a picture in front of it. I think if Brooke and Steve were to go on vacation together, all the cameras in the world would explode. Although it did mean that Adam and I managed to double the number of pictures we have of us together in one weekend.


16. Matterhorn, where the boys all refused to "bunk up" with one another in the awkward two-person tandem seats

17. Big Thunder Mountain

18. Pirates the third. Thanks to Fantasmic, there were about 15 people in line when we got there. Yes, Steve was That Guy who takes pictures inside Pirates of the Caribbean.

19. Haunted Mansion. The ride was literally stopped because there was no one on it.
20. Space Mountain. Not pictured, because Steve and Kristin were racing to use their fastpasses while Ben and Adam kindly saved spots for...

21. Fantasmic!! Which brought tears to my eyes. Definitely my absolute favorite part of the Disneyland experience. I tried to post the surprisingly high-quality 23-minute video Steve took, but gave up after Blogger crashed twice. Brooke, I know you would have watched it. These are my feet resting against the edge of the fence across from Tom Sawyer's Island. Front row seats!

The crowning achievement of Steve's amateur Disney-photography career.

22. Finding Nemo, which I'd never been on and absolutely hated. I thought I was going to die in that tiny submarine. (My expression in this picture reminds me of the face Ryan does when you tell him to smile for the camera)

It was the most successful Disneyland trip in recent memory. The weather was perfect, the lines were short, we did everything we wanted, and were surprisingly cheery and ache-free at the end of the day. This led me to conclude that the secret to all-day happiness at Disneyland is threefold: Dr. Scholl's gel inserts, a fresh pair of socks at midday, and a dose of Advil at 6:00 p.m.

We rounded out the blissful weekend with some quality time with Wini and George, and of course with Wendy, Jeff, and their gorgeous children. Ryan and Audrey somehow manage to become more adorable each time I see them, as evidenced here:

and here:and here.

They were so adorable, in fact, that Wendy and I couldn't resist taking these, which ended up feeling like test shots for our alternative lifestyle Christmas card.

And my personal favorite:

Just call me Rosie O'Donnell.