Happy Anniversary and 4th of July, Disney style.

10 years ago we decided to get married on 4th of July weekend.  10 years, 3 children, and a lot of ups and downs.  To celebrate we left the kids at home, even the baby, and went out to dinner at Napa Rose at Disney's Grand Californian.

 

The biggest present we gave each other was to renew our passes to Disneyland though.  It's been almost an entire year since we've been and we wanted to surprise the kids.  We didn't tell them until we woke them up on the 4th of July and they were so excited! We decided the night before hand to go to Storyteller's Cafe for breakfast.  It's a character breakfast which we knew the kids would love.  Chip and Dale's Critter breakfast was a hit!

The kids got to see a Chip, Dale, the bears from Brother Bear, and the raccoon from Pocahontas, all while eating some great food.  Green Bubble's favorite part was then the bear gave us a Happy Birthday button with America written as the name.  I don't think he quite understood it, but he loved getting a present from a character.  He even took a selfie with my camera while I was at the buffet with his sister.

Here's a few more photos from our breakfast.  It's hard to get good pictures in general of small children, and adding in a character breakfast you can see how great most of the pictures were!

After breakfast we decided to go to Disney's California Adventure since you can enter it through the hotel.  We expected a lot of crowds being the 4th of July but were pleasantly surprised.  We managed to walk on almost every ride we went on that day.  We got to go on Ariel's Ride, King Triton's Carasol, Toy Story Mania, and Disney Jr's Live on Stage.  Daddy took Malcolm to Soaring while I took the littles to go on the Monsters Inc. ride and we got to see Doc McStuffins and Princess Sofia as well while we waited for them to catch up to us.

And the best part?  We were home by 12:30pm with plenty of time for meals and naps before seeing the fireworks in our own neighborhood away from the crowds.  Since we have the passes we can go back whenver we want and not have to feel guilty for spending so much money to only go for a few hours.  In fact, Little Miss even asked to go back again today and I think we just might!