DisneyLand Day 3

By the end of the previous night Embrie had started to cough. But she didn't seem to be too congested. We'd stocked up on medicines, I'd brought plenty and we'd gotten a couple more things at the store our first day so we hoped to be set. That night was another sleepless one for Brad and I, with Garrett, Embrie and I coughing all night and Embrie having another few fits in the night. We woke up again that morning about 6ish.

-Maren loved the chance to walk around a bit and try to chase the birds that were around the park.-

This day we'd visit California Adventure and the much anticipated Cars Land (which was sort of the main event for our family). Since Radiator Springs Racers is the hottest ride right now (Cars Land being brand new) I got in line for a 'fastpass' to that ride before the park even opened. That would allow us to go to the ride at a certain time and be able to bypass most of the regular line for the ride.  You see this time we had a plan for the day. We knew basically what we were going to see and what order we'd try to do it in. I would say this was much more effective!

While I did that Brad took the kids to The Monsters Inc. ride and a Bugs Land rides.

They also met Minnie Mouse! Where is Garret do you say? He was too shy of Minnie to get in the picture. Guess we needed a little more warming up and a pep talk from mom.

Then We headed for Cars Land!

You'll notice in Garrett's arms Lightening McQueen, the pillow who has been his best, favorite toy since he was 2. Garrett was insistent on bringing this fragile stuffed toy to the park each day and wanted Lightening to be in a picture when we met .. Lightening.

I have to say I was impressed! Cars Land basically looks like you stepped into the real town of Radiator Springs! It's prefect!

We saw Red the Fire Truck driving around.

Garrett was for some reason really excited about Mater's petting zoo, which consists of this solitary little tractor, but everytime we passed it he had to go visit it. This is about the time he started saying "mom take a picture of me right here!"

Then we got to meet Tow-Mater! Another favorite character! The kids got their books signed and picture with him.  He talked and made jokes!

Then we started the rides, like Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.

Another great thing at the parks is the stroller swap. If you have a stroller child who can't ride, one adult can take the two kids on the ride and the other adult gets a pass so that when the first riders are done the person waiting with the stroller can get on the ride with the kids right away instead of having to wait in the full line twice! So our kids got to ride a lot of rides 2 times, once with dad and once with mom.

When we got done with that ride we noticed a change. Mater was gone but Lightening McQueen, himself was now out for autographs and pictures. He talked and revved his engine and we got to see him drive around too! (make sure you notice little lightening tucked under Garrett's arm, had I been next to him I would have made him more visible, but he was there!)

more of  ... ' mom take my picture doing this."

and 'now me'

They got their picture next to Red because it was another line to get a picture with him and we decided to ride more rides instead of wait.

While the kids rode with dad on Luigi's Flying Tires Maren and I watched DJ put on a misuc and dance show.

No pics of the Radiator Springs Racers ride, but I will say both Brad and I thought it was pretty fun and the kids loved it! Definately one of the coolest rides.

We spent most of the day in CarsLand but we ventured out toward the end and headed to Mickey's Paradise Peir. Where we found another cool Character, Donald Duck. By this time everyone was completely warmed up and we were getting autographs in those cute little books we bought.

For some reason one of the rides Garrett was most excited about was Mickey's Fun Wheel (farris wheel).

And The Toystory ride was pretty cool.

I was really surprised but glad to find that Maren could ride on almost everything too!

Now these aren't great pictures by any means, but I had to mention Ariel's Undersea Adventure. Because it is the ride we rode the most at Disney. There was not much of a wait, the line was really fast, and once again everyone could ride. They just kept asking to go on it again and again so we did.

I couldn't get a good shot of the girls but just look at Maren's face! She was in love with this ride! By the time we left she could say 'Ariel '.

TBC ....

Disneyland or bust! Days 1 and 2

For over a year I'd been trying to talk Brad into going to Disneyland. I started to get the kids excited about it by telling them what is actually was, and talked them into asking their dad if they could go *wink*.  Finally we'd settled on a time. We told the kids that if they wanted to go they needed to start saving their money. (maybe you've seen the previous entry on how they decorated a jar to save their money in.) We finally told them they needed to earn $4 more. And when papa Clyde heard that what do you think he did? Of course, he gave them 4$ and they were so excited and ready to go ... so a few days later we let them in on the secret.

We talked about how they worked hard to earn the money and how mom and dad saved too. We gave them each a small mickey and minnie backpack that had fun things to do while we travel inside.

So they tucked their little back packs neatly on their nightstands and they waited two more days.

The day before we left at one point Embrie was acting whiney and tired and Brad said 'I guess you better go to bed early.' Garrett piped up and said "yeah! lets go to bed early so that we can get up early and we'll go to Disneyland sooner!" Just thought we'd put that on the record, first time Garrett has ever agreed to go to bed early.

He told me that he would get up 'bright and early' and I told him he'd better not get up too early, it would be a long day. 4:30am he comes into my room to tell me that it is taking a really long time to be morning. :) I told him to go back to bed for 3 more hours.

-all smiles riding the shuttle at the airport-

The airport was a new experience for them. I think they were just as excited about this as they were about Disneyland itself.

They were very good little helpers and followers.

On the plane they got out their backpacks and enjoyed the ride.

The night before we'd left Garrett and I started to get cold symptoms, not something I was too worried about. But as the plane descended into LA Garrett started to cry that his ears were hurting. Poor guy. My ears hurt pretty bad too so I was sure he was not exagerating. After that all day he kept saying "I can hear you just not very good." Little ears were plugged the rest of the day. But everyone else did great. We got into our hotel and got ready to see Disneyland the next day.

*********

When you're planning 3 days in the park you do want to get up early enough to be there when the park opens ... however, you don't have to do what we did and wake up at 5am.

So starts the tale of sickness, Garrett was coughing all night but seemed to sleep mostly ok. Embrie (which seems to happen everytime we've stayed in a hotel) has moments through out the night of half consciousness and yells and tries to hit everyone in reach. So we were up trying to settle her down a few times that night. Then she decided she was completely awake at 5am. So we tried to convince her it was really time to sleep, but the time she fell back to sleep at 6am everyone else in the room was awake for the day, ha! That might make for a long day for a 15mo old and a 6 yr old. not to mention mom and dad who'd been awake at 5.

BUT who cares when you're going to the Happiest Place on Earth? no one seemed to have any crankiness problems that day! :)

Our very first ride at DisneyLand? The Mad Hatter's Spinning Tea cups.

And then I got to do something that I bet most people have never done ...

I shut down the ride.

Yep. That's right folks! By some weird freak thing, while I was getting Embrie out of the cup my camera's battery compartment opened and the batteries popped out. I got one but the other rolled under the tea cup and got stuck in the track. Seriously...? So of course I told the ride operator because I didn't want it to cause a problem. But it was a problem. They tried to get it out and couldn't, the next group of people had to get off and they had to close it to get it out. Yeah and the next couple of minutes as we walked through the crowd I kept hearing little snippets of conversation like "someone's battery got stuck", "they closed the tea cups" Brad thought that was pretty funny. But they were shutting down fantasy land for filming that day anyway so I figure it wasn't too bad. (Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson were apparently there filming a movie, didn't see them though.)

- Buzz Lightyear ride-

The kids were amazed at the life size talking Buzz (we tried to get him in the picture but it didn't work out) Maren couldn't take her eye off him.) We ran into some friends from our neighborhood and went on a few rides with them. Glad they were there to help give us some tips. We didn't actually hit a ton of rides that first day because we weren't quite sure what we were doing.

The rides we did: Autotopia, Star Tours, BuzzLightyear, Tea cups, Space Mountain, a rocket ride,Little Nemo Submarines, Matterhorn, Pinnochio and Dumbo.
I had forgotten how dark it can be on Spacemountain, but Embrie was a trooper. After it was all over she said she liked it and it was fun, then she looked at me with that panicked about to cry look and said, I think I'm scared to go on it again.

While Garrett and Dad went on the Matterhorn (which by the way Garrett decided was also too scary to go on again), Embrie, Maren and I waited in line at Pixie Hollow to meet Tinkerbell and her sister Periwinkle.

This was a good warm up, my kids are a little shy after all. So Embrie wouldn't get her picture with Periwinkle but she did ask for her autograph. Maren wasn't so sure either.

with a little persuasion from mom and Tinkerbell Embrie agreed to learn the pixie handshake. And then smiled big for a picture with Tink.

Garrett in the meantime saw Goofy but would not go near him. Ha!

Another cool thing we did was Jedi Training. I saved us some spots right up front and was excited for the kids to possibly get picked to participate! Oh yeah there I go again forgetting that my kids are too shy to volunteer. :/ Who are these kids? Who doesn't want to be a Jedi?

It was pretty cool they picked a ton of kids out and gave them all robes and light sabers and taught them a few moves and then guess who showed up?!

Darth Vader!!!!

And then Darth Maul

Ok so I guess maybe volunteering to be a jedi could be a little intimidating with this guy around. Embrie quickly backed away from the front row seating when he started pacing in front of us. Garrett didn't back away but Darth Maul did make him jump a couple times.

Each kid that had trained got to fight against either Darth Vader or Darth Maul and of course the dark side was defeated! This was a cool show, wish my kids would have wanted to participate. Maybe next time?

And last but not least, no one knows how to do a parade better than Disney!

Mickey's Soundsational Parade was the last thing we did that night.

The kids saw tons of Characters and bounced along to the music. Maren was in awe.

Just some final fun shots at the end of the day.

One Character that we saw that day, I wish we would have stopped her, was Cruella Deville. Man that would be a cool and uncommon autograph to get!

Coolest House in the Hood

Someday I wish to have the best decorated house in the neighborhood- well to set the record straight not just to beat out the neighbors or anything like that. I guess I've always been somewhat of a holiday junkie and it just gets worse with age.

Well there is a house that is not far from mine that decorates for Halloween in the most AMAZING way ever! I was so impressed with the attention to small detail and the theme that they came up with.  And so I wanted to share it.

I only hope that someday I can decorate my house half this well (which will also require me to have enough money to do so ;) I can't imagine how much it cost them to do this.

WELCOME TO THE DEAD AND BREAKFAST!

to see more details look at this blog  http://blog.daybreakliving.com/2012/10/daybreak-halloween-house.html 

they handed out 500 or so big gift bags to trick or treaters! We didn't get to see it at night, nor did we feel it neccessary to wait in a very long line to trick or treat at their house for a gift bag, plus we don't live in their neighborhood, but I loved looking at it!

Plus the guy (yes I talked to him) says they decorate for Christmas big too, you can bet I'll go back and check it out!

Happy Halloween

TRICK

or

TREAT

Little Witch, Turtle, Tony Stark Ironman

This was Embrie's pre-school party day, they'd had a professional face painter. I thought thiswas adorable, especially with that witchy face.