The Happiest place(s) on earth

Although we have never bought into the idea that parents are depriving their children of the necessities of life if they have never been to Disneyland, the stars aligned for us in January, and we were able to put together a pretty fun trip.

It all started last summer, when Kelly proposed a paper for a conference in San Diego, then forgot all about it. In October, we found out we'd be going down south, so we figured we could try to piggyback on the drive down with a trip to the magical kingdom itself. One thing led to another, the phones started ringing, and before we knew it we had ourselves an ordeal all lined up. Here are some pictures from the fiasco in no particular order (importing confusion).

The first day at Disneyland was tough on little B. He came down with a cold that later evolved into a flu, which resulted in throw up near the men's restroom of the Livermore A&W Root Beer. When we got home, he climbed into the crib (which he hasn't used in years), and went to sleep. Sick kids are a sad sight.

This was earlier in the trip, when a few power ranger action figures, the first twenty minutes of several DVD's, and lots of junk food got us all the way down the coast (7.5 hours) with minimal whining and crying. Asher took two naps along the way. Overall, we had some pretty good travelers.

They say Disneyland makes the kids happy...you should see the grandparents. We were so happy to have Kim's parents lay aside their normal lives for a few days and make the trip over. Although Bennett doesn't show it in the picture, our kids were so glad to be around their grandparents and ate up every second they could get. And to top it all off, the cousins from Oklahoma flew in and turned the trip into a veritable family reunion. 

Southern California in January - warm enough to play in the water in a diaper.

And Mr. Crankyface (at the beginning of the sick phase, Bennett was not feeling very happy)

Asher, on the other hand, was loving life in Toon Town.

While Kelly was sitting through boring talks all day at the hotel, Kim and the boys got a special visitor - aunt Leanne from Arizona - who accompanied them to Sea World one day. Despite the funny sea lions and spectacular orcas, Asher preferred rolling around in his jammies all over Leanne.

But the shows were pretty cool.
Bennett was not very pleasant at SeaWorld, even after several exuberant youtube sessions leading up to the occasion. He did, however, enjoy the padded play area with the huge stackable blocks. Can anyone tell me how this fits in to the marine motif?