The Cahoonion Reunion - Disneyland 2008!!!

We just got back from the Cahoon Family Reunion in California. Every 4 years the Cahoon family gets together for a trip to Disneyland. This year almost every single member of the extended family was able to attend. We had a blast! I will just give you a quick synopsis and lots of pictures.

June 16th - Day 1 in Disneyland
We woke up bright and early so that we could be at Disneyland right when it opened. We gathered for our traditional family picture just inside the main gates, everyone dressed in their reunion shirts with the family tree on the front. We are known throughout Disneyland as "the tree people". They are pretty awesome because you can easily locate anyone from our group, and it came in handy when my little cousin got lost within about 5 minutes of being in the park. She was quickly recovered though because the Disney worker recognized her as "one of our kind" :) After the picture we were off to hit the rides. Thanks to the brilliant Fast Pass system and my brother Spencer's willingness to run and collect all the Fast Passes were were able to hit every major ride in Disneyland before noon and rarely had to wait in line for more than 20 minutes, it was awesome! That evening we caught the fireworks show, which was incredible! It is unbelievable that they put on such an amazing (and expensive) show almost every single night during the summer! The two pictures below are of all of us in our t-shirts and then me and Jayson with "Flat Grandpa". Grandpa Cahoon passed away a couple months after our last Disneyland trip, and the trip just didn't seem the same without him. So my aunt laminated a bunch of pictures of Grandpa and we all carried them around Disneyland with us and took tons of great pictures with them.





June 17th - Day 2 in Disneyland
We didn't wake up quite so early as we were pretty exhausted from the previous day. We did Disneyland again in the morning and then headed over to California Adventure for the afternoon. We caught a really fun parade featuring all the Pixar characters. That evening we also went to the Fantasmic fireworks/water show which was also incredible.

June 18th - San Diego Temple and Sea World
Jayson and I used our "free day" to head down to San Diego for a date (it was our 19 month anniversary :) In the morning we went to the San Diego Temple to do a session. It was kind of nostalgic for Jayson because that was the temple he used to go to on his mission, he served in the Carlsbad Mission. It was wonderful and the temple is absolutely gorgeous, it was a peaceful way to spend the morning after being on the go for two days straight. After the temple we headed to Sea World. This was also a great change of pace because for the most part you just sit and watch shows at Sea World. We caught all the majors shows and despite the fact that Sea World is way over-priced we still thought the shows were incredible and lots of fun. I even encountered one of my greatest fears . . . sharks! They had a really cool shark exhibit where you walked through an underwater glass tunnel and had sharks swimming all around and over you! It was pretty neat, you can check it out in my video.

June 19th - Beach Day
The entire extended family headed over to the beach for the day and also enjoyed our traditional KFC lunch on the beach. We had tons of fun playing in the ocean, attempting to body surf, and making sandcastles. Despite our diligent sunscreening however, we still managed to get sunburned :)

June 20th - Day 3 in Disneyland
We spent the last day of the week in Disneyland and California Adventure again and had a blast revisiting all the rides and just hanging out with each other! My family is the best! We stayed until the bitter end to make the most of our last day at Disneyland and didn't leave the park until after midnight. I loved walking around Disneyland at night with my sweetheart, it is so romantic with all of the lights and music!