Disneyland: Airport and Downtown Disney

We decided back in July that a December Disney trip would be a great idea! I have been once before at Christmastime in 2008, but Sean and of course the kids have never been during the holidays. Mom and Dad P and Mom and Dad Z accompanied us on the trip, which was great fun! Our story all started on Tuesday night when Sean called at 5:30 to tell me one of his patients was diagnosed with severe preeclampsia and needed to be hospitalized and her baby needed to be delivered. Sean wasn’t really sure what was going to happen or what to expect. He needed to be there for the delivery if he could, but they had to wait for some blood pressures and lab results to come in. He told me he would at least leave by 7 AM the next morning so that he could shower before our plane took off. The lady ended up delivering by c-section around midnight and Sean arrived home at 2 AM or so. I had gotten everything in order with packing and our flight etc. We took Brett to preschool and finished packing up. Alana was so excited! She kept telling us that she was going on her own seat in the airplane (this was her first flight). Brett was also so excited! We picked him up halfway through preschool to head to the airport. The kids were awesome on the flight and loved every minute of it! We arrived in California to a beautiful sunny day! Here we are on the park-n-jet bus in Utah. Alana was pretty concerned when we hopped on here, she snuggled tight =)

Brett was a huge helper in the airport pulling a carry-on bag around. I think he got tired but he never would admit to that. Both the kids thought security was weird, but they got through it great.
 
Our plane was right on time! I made each of the kids a little travel bag with a few of their toys and some new Boogie Board writing tablets. The thing they were most excited for was the Mike and Ikes =) Alana was especially thrilled to have her own seat!
 
We were flying right through her nap time and she zonked right out. She wouldn’t snuggle to me or lay down on the seat though, this looked terribly uncomfortable to me!

When we arrived in Long Beach, we took a taxi to our hotel. We got all settled in the hotel room, then headed to Downtown Disney. We had reservations at the Rainforest Cafe at 6:30 and Mom and Dad P were going to meet us there when they arrived. We walked through the World of Disney store and I think Brett’s hard earned money was burning a hole in his pocket. He picked a blue lightsaber =)
 
We had a lovely dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, and other than our kids being absolutely starving and therefore a little grumpy, it was a great experience. We stopped at the Jazz Kitchen on the way back to our hotel to get some beignets (french donuts)- so yummy! It was also super super foggy! The most fog I have ever seen =) We got back to the hotel and got to sleep, Sean especially was so tired after only getting 5 hours of sleep the night before.