The Happiest Place on Earth

The Harrington Family did it. We had our first annual week-long family vacation. I know, I know. You're probably thinking we vacation all the time. And we do. But this was our first real, week-long vacation (with our whole family and no one but our family).

So where to, on this momentous occasion? We wanted to go somewhere that would spoil us for the rest of our vacationing career (can I say that? is that an oxymoron?) Somewhere that would make every vacation after this seem lame by comparison. Girls, we're going to...

Disneyland!

We started the trip off by visiting family in California (but who takes pictures of that?) which was amazingly fun, and shamefully overdue. The rest of the trip, well, with about a thousand pictures to weed through... gear up for a long post. Because I know you want to know every nitty gritty detail of our week of awesomeness.

Day 1 of the Beach ...

Hallie discovered her love for the ocean (if you'll note she has a rock in each hand, her first love is still for rocks)...

Brecken is showing me a seashell (sorry, I accidentally blurred it a bit too much). Her first love. I think seashell collecting was as impressive as Disneyland itself...

And Taylor discovered her love of chasing birds...

And also the sorrow of defeat. After defeat...

Day 2 of Beach...

This time Huntington Beach, which we have decided it is the best beach in California the world.

This picture is even more adorable when you know that Hallie is not walking. She stood in this exact position for an entire minute...

Dad and his girls...

And now for the good stuff. The Happiest Place on Earth...

I will start with the Princesses. Brecken could not rest until we had seen Cinderella. It mattered not that we could get on any ride we wanted to in less than ten minutes, Cinderella must be seen. Hour long line and all. But, may I say, every minute of the wait was worth it...

Rapunzel...

And then there were lots of pictures of lots of princesses, but moving on. We ran into Alice...

Minnie's house. Where every minute my back was turned Taylor was running back to hug Minnie's leg (ruining dozens of strangers' family pictures, no doubt)...

Enjoying every magical crack and crevice of Disneyland...

And the rides! The tea cups were a general favorite of the kids (not so much the dad's- something about spinning round and round)...

And Hallie's favorite ride was the train. In all seriousness. She waved to everyone and everything. She loved it. I don't know who had more fun: Hallie waving, or me watching Hallie waving. Probably Hallie...

And Taylor on the train, just 'cause she's cute...

Our own Sleeping Beauty (hey, Disneyland will do that to you)...

LAAH! (that's my attempt at a chorus singing) It's the Disneyland Castle!!!! And us in front of it (us minus Hallie-she's taking the picture)...

Brecken and her most prized posession...

And there were two favorite things to see in Disneyland: The "mean queen" opening the curtains of the Snow White ride (that's a picture of Taylor's face when she saw the queen)...

And the parade. It was un. be. lievable...

At the end of the day...

Disneyland Day 2 (which was really California Adventure)...

In the morning while getting ready the girls were occupied. Much to Taylor's dismay I had to answer "no" to the question: "Is MegaMind in Disneyland?"...

There were more rides...

And fun random moments...

And, of course, more characters to meet...

We brought so much food with us every day. Eating was almost as fun as riding the rides. Actually not. But it was fun nonetheless. This is us eating lunch (just in case you didn't catch why I was mentioning the food we brought)...

And when all was said and done, Taylor's favorite ride was the carrousel. Really. She tells that to everyone. So when you look at this picture, you are looking into the face of perfect felicity...

Day 3 of the Beach...

Huntington Beach was so perfect we had to go back again...

This time so Russ could do this...

And this (oh, he'd be embarrassed if he knew I put this on here)...

And Day 3 of Disneyland...

Our final day. The pictures of this day need a little preface. The previous two days of Disneyland, everywhere we went there were kids, adults, teenagers, normal people and weirdos wearing their Mickey Mouse Ears and Disneyland Shirts. Inwardly I scoffed (not at the children), equating them to nerds who dress up in their Darth Vader costumes on the opening night of Star Wars (no offense Star Wars Nerds). Well, after two perfect days of Disney Bliss, I was singing M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E on my way to the Disney Store. The ears were a bit much, but I could handle a shirt. We are now the Disneyland version of Star Wars Nerds (again, no offense)...

More characters (we met dozens... so feel lucky I spared you most of them)...

How Hallie entertained herself in the character lines (which were always longer than the ride lines)...

We kept meaning to get back to the castle and get a picture of the Harrington nerds family wearing our Mickey shirts in front of that great Disney edifice. But, in all honesty, we were having too much fun riding the rides, watching the parade, enjoying the fireworks, and reveling in the wonder of Disneyland to stop. At the end of the day, all three girls were asleep. So I took a picture, Harringtonless, of the castle.

It was an amazing vacation. There were no melt downs. The weather was beautiful. We rode our favorite (well, the girl's favorite) rides four and five times, Brecken found a million seashells at the beach, we met every character the girls had hoped to, and Hallie only had one poopy diaper a day at Disneyland. When so many things like that go right, I really have to say Heavenly Father blessed us so much.

Disneyland, M-I-C, See you real soon K-E-Y, Why? Because we like you. M-O-U-S-E.

(only, it won't really be real soon, but we do like you)