California Trip: Day Five

Before we left for California, we purchased two days of Disney tickets for us. On the Sunday we arrived in California, David's aunts and uncle generously told us they wanted to give us a third full day at Disney. We were totally blown away...so we had a third day at Disney and decided to go back to the main park, Disneyland. It worked out well since we hadn't gotten to see everything that first Disney day.

Again, it was another up and at 'em bright and early day. Breakfast at the hotel at 6:30, on the shuttle by 7 and on Main Street by 7:30. It was awesome! We rushed to Big Thunder Mountain so the boys could have their first ride on a roller coaster (or mini one). They LOVED it!! We were literally on the second coaster of the day for that ride. Way cool!

After Big Thunder Mountain, we headed over to It's A Small World. 

Not a whole lot has changed on this ride. I've ridden it a few times over the years, and it's always such a sweet little ride! 

And guess what song we sang in our heads the rest of the day?

Then we headed over to the tea cups (Jonathan was sad he didn't ride them on Tuesday). 

He loved them! 

After that, it was 9 a.m. and Toon Town was having its festive opening for the day. We trotted in behind Goofy and followed him over to his autograph/photo spot! 

Goofy was really fun and interacted with the boys for quite some time! 

Jonathan made sure to tell him we would see him the next morning at his restaurant for our fun breakfast! 

We played around Toon Town for awhile...it was Benjamin's favorite part of the park. 

Since we were now roller-coaster pros, we headed over to stand in line for Gadget's Go-Go Coaster in Toon Town.  

David & Jonathan got the front car! 

 After that, we had some snacks and hung out a bit more in Toon Town.

And the boys got a bit Goofy. 

Not sure what's with the lounging on the trolley...guess someone was already worn out.

 We headed over to Critter Country to ride Splash Mountain...which amazingly had zero line. We ran through all the turnstyles and grabbed our log! Benjamin was in front and laughed and cackled the whole time! The above is just a phone photo of the screen with our photo...I cropped it because of the glaring flash. But, look at that face! And his arms stayed up the whole way down the BIG hill!

This is what happens when you're in front on Splash Mountain: soaked! 

Jonathan insisted on taking this photo in front of these flowers...he knows a good photo op when he sees one! :) 

Of course, we had to do one more show in the Tiki Room...which was more crowded than Splash Mountain. Weird! ;)

We ran into Chip over on Main Street. Dale had to run so we didn't get his sig. :( 

 Chip was awesome!

Then, as we had promised the boys (after they waited for three days at Disney and were super patient), we let the boys pick out their souvenirs. They each wanted a plush toy, mom insisted on t-shirts, and David & I found some fun stuff for ourselves, too (even Bento supplies! Score!).

As we were heading out of the park to grab a late lunch, we ran into someone we had been waiting for! We got his autograph and gave him a big hug! 

David really wanted to see one of his old haunts for lunch...The Athenian. It was great. My gyro was served on a Christmas plate which totally cracked us up! After lunch, we stopped by Trader Joe's and I had a B-L-A-S-T! In LOVE with that store. They're opening soon in the Dallas area, so I will sooo be there! Got lots of fun snacks, soap and adorable purse mints made from green tea. Officially hooked on Trader Joe's. They caused us to have one additional piece of luggage for the ride home. 

We headed over to Downtown Disney around 4:30 to walk around and meet up with David's family for dinner. 

 The boys were super excited to tell Great Grandma all about their three days of Disney!

We ate at Rainforest Cafe and totally enjoyed it! 

Jonathan quickly grabbed a seat right by Great Grandma. 

Benjamin had to get a hug, too! Everyone spoiled the boys at dinner with fun light up cup drinks...

And a crazy dessert called a Volcano! 

Aunt Mona snuck off and bought the boys some awesome Rainforest presents...t-shirts, plushies, pens and books. Spoiled rotten, I tell ya! David's family loves those boys to pieces! Aunt Anna spoiled them the day before with lots of Cars loot at California Adventure! We even received Mickey Crocs (that we searched for all over Disney without finding our sizes) & Disney Jibbitz in the mail a couple of days ago...the boys LOVE them!

Jonathan chatting with Great Grandma. 

We had to take serious measures to get Benjamin out of the Rainforest! 

(again pic of a pic)

It was such an AWESOME way to end the day. 

Love and miss everyone so much already!

California Trip: Day Four

On our fourth day, we headed over to Disney's California Adventure. California Adventure didn't open until 10, so we could sleep in a bit (although we still had to be there earlier than 10 to get our fast passes for the World of Color show that night)! We were excited to have Aunt Anna & Cousin Alex join us there during the afternoon.

The only bummer is that we missed the opening of the new Cars Land by a month or so. What a bummer for Benjamin...he's still a big Cars fan! We could see some of the cool Radiator Springs landscape from over the wall they have up...it looks like it will be ahhhh-mazing!

When we arrived that morning (after getting those fast passes for World of Color), we made a charge for Toy Story Mania (along with everyone else in the park). The park hadn't even opened yet, and there was already a very wind-y line for it. But, it wasn't too bad...only a twenty minute wait.

It's a 3D ride...and it's so similar to our Toy Story Mania Wii game...so we were excited to play the "live version".

Benjamin & Daddy teamed up against Jonathan & I. They may have won the highest score, but Jonathan & I won for accuracy (and Jonathan technically outscored all of us in that area!).

After we rode Toy Story Mania, we hopped on the carousel that was next door (and had no line).

Doesn't Jonathan look thrilled?

After that, we headed down to the Hollywood backlot area. We first watched the Pixar Pals from Monsters Inc. that were doing a fun street show. Then we headed to the Disney Junior Show (Jonathan loved all the characters...especially Jake & the Neverland Pirates).

When we walked out of the theatre for the show, Aunt Anna was waiting for us!

She took us over to ride the Monsters, Inc. ride which was super fun!

After that ride, we saw the Muppet 3D Movie...super cute and funny. 

And the theatre blows up. And you get wet. Good times. 

From there, we had met up with cousin Alex for lunch over at the Taste Pilots' Grill. We all had Bleu Cheese Burgers that were amazing! 

After lunch, we stopped and said hello to our favorite friends, Mater & Lightening.

Then we headed over to wait in line for the caterpillar ride in A Bug's Life land. It was such a cute ride! And smelled great, too. The caterpillar takes you on a tour (from his point of view) of all the foods he loves. At one point, the train rides through a giant watermelon that smelled like...watermelon! And then through a giant box of cookies that smelled like fresh baked cookies...so fun!

Benjamin & Alex

Aunt Anna and Jonathan

Kind of crazy....David & I got to ride together on this one!

After that, the boys rode the spinning food box ride thingy...it was a little too spinny for the girls! 

Then B&J were just soooo ready to get wet in the splash pad area of A Bug's Life.

These are the measures we had to take to get them out of the splash pad area.

Soaked!!

After this, we went and rode one of our favorites...California Soarin'. It was AWESOME (even with the 45 minute line). It's a simulated ride that takes you all over California as if you were sky-gliding. The orange groves you fly over smell like....oranges!! It was super fun.

After that, we were all getting tired and it was pretty late in the day. We said goodbye to Anna & Alex and headed back to the hotel for a rest. We were able to walk past California Pizza Kitchen and grab some supper to take back to the hotel and have a super lazy time. Our room was a suite which we hadn't expected at all...it made it nice to sit around a table and eat together when we were so tired and didn't feel like going to another restaurant. Plus the boys had one whole room all to themselves the rest of the time. 

After getting totally recharged, we headed back to California Adventure for the World of Color Show. Our fast passes landed us in a great area in the blue zone...right in front of the water! Here's Benjamin waiting on the show to start.

As recommended by a friend, we picked up churros and hot chocolate while we waited.

Everyone loved the churros!

And the show was absolutely amazing...can't even put into words how beautiful it was! And this photo doesn't even begin to do it justice. 

After the World of Color show, were were able to catch the Disneyland fireworks show as we were walking to catch our shuttle to the hotel. The fireworks made me want to just stroll all the way to the hotel (which a lot of others did since it wasn't too far). But, our legs told us to take the shuttle.

Another wonderful day that wore us out and made us sleep like babies!