Monday, November 9th
Today was a travel day. Our flight didn't leave too early (11:00) so we were off to a good rested start. Little backpacks were full of new treats to make the flights go more smooth. They are old enough now that traveling with them is pretty easy, I just wanted to make sure they didn't get bored on the plane. And they didn't :)
We made it to our hotel around 3:30p and got settled in a little and then we were off. Seeing that our park hoppers didn't start until Tuesday, we headed to Downtown Disney with a special treat in store for the kids. Maddy spotted Build-a-Bear and of course asks "can we go there?". She knows the answer is usually "not today" and you could tell she was asking the question thinking that was going to be our answer. But it wasn't!
After some time picking out and dressing Heart (the polar bear) and Carter (the puppy) we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back to our hotel. We stayed at an Embassy Suites hotel which brought back a lot of memories from missions trips in high school (after some reminding from Kelly)! Hooray for free popcorn and Shirley temples :D Between the popcorn, chex mix, pop, bridge, water, fish, turtles, waterfalls and pool, the hotel provided plenty of entertainment for the evening.
Tuesday, November 10th
Up bright and early! Yes, being out the door at 8:20 is early for us. It was time for our first day of magical memories and it began at Goofy's Kitchen for breakfast. Upon walking in we spotted our first character, Pluto. Once getting seated we saw Minnie, Cinderella, Goofy, Baloo, Chip and Dale. The kids were SO excited! Periodically throughout breakfast the characters would meet in the middle of the restaurant and dance. At one point in time Maddy got to dance with Baloo. It was SO cute!
He'd bump her with his 'ol belly and she would just laugh and laugh. The video of this is great.
After enjoying pancakes, waffles, grapes, strawberries, ice cream and gummy worms for breakfast (yes, that is allowed and perfectly normal for Disneyland) we went over to Disneyland where all the true magic began...
...or so we thought it was to begin.
We headed to Mickey's Toontown in the back of the park thinking that seeing Mickey would be a great start.
Boy were we wrong.
They thought Mickey, Minnie and Goofy's houses were cool but they weren't all to impressed. We met Mickey, which they loved and then we decided that taking them on some rides might put the magic in their eyes.
Wrong again
Just an FYI for future Disneyland goers. Don't take your (almost) 4 year old on the roller coaster in Toontown as their first ride. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it but it's a real small roller coaster. There aren't really any hills but it does go pretty fast. It freaked Bryson out and it was nothing but an uphill battle getting him to go on any rides the rest of the week.
We left Toontown and didn't return the rest of the week
We did find some rides Bryson liked including the Buzz Lightyear ride and Star Wars. As most of the rides do, at the end of the Star Wars ride it spits you right out into a store. Bryson had been looking forward to making a double light saber ever since seeing Garrett's so that is what we did.
Can you tell how happy this made him.
Wednesday, November 11
Sea World day!
After a little, 1 hr. 45 min., drive we were at Sea World. The ride there and back wasn't too bad. Maddy stayed entertained with her journal she got from her magic bag and Bryson slept. By the way, the magic bag was a little bag that was filled with a special treat each morning for the kids. We originally did it to save $$$ on toys down there but we broke our own rules a few times and the walked away from the trip quite spoiled. It was so hard to resist some of the stuff and we still stayed way in budget so why not huh?!
We were a little disappointed that the Dolphin show was down for reconstruction but there were plenty of other things to do. We visited aquariums, saw various animals, played on the biggest playground I have ever seen, pet dolphins and star fish and of course saw Shamu. I could watch that Shamu show a gazillion times over and love it every time. Those animals are just amazing to me.
We actually went back to the second showing of this on our way out.
Thursday, November 12
Even though we could hop between Disneyland and California Adventure we choose today to spend the majority of the day at California Adventure. However, we got stuck over at Disneyland for the morning. We had early admission tickets to Disneyland we used this day. Took advantage of no lines and went on some of the popular rides. Then headed over to the princess castle (for a second time) to see if we could meet some princesses we hadn't yet. We were first in line, had a short wait and did get to see a few new ones. Worked out great. We felt blessed that we never had to wait in line to see the princesses.
Over at California Adventure Maddy found one of her favorite rides. The Grizzly Bear Ride. After going on it with her I was completely shocked she loved it so much. Hills, turns, spinning, water, splashing, water, hills, water...and she loved it so much we went on it countless times. Jeff and I switching back and forth because there was of course NO WAY Bryson was going to attempt it.
There were a lot of fun rides here and the only part of California Adventure the kids did not like was It's a Bug's Life. They were not too fond of any of the 4D shows. We made it through about 2 mins of "It's a Bug's LIfe". Oh well.
We made it over to the Aladdin show at the very last minute. We had preferred seating but got there too late (the time we had printed off from the computer was about 1/2 hour off from the show time) so we were stuck way way up in the balcony. It was alright though, the show was still really good. Maddy cracked me up during the show, laughing at jokes that were being told that I know she had no idea what they meant. It was pretty funny. She had a good time. We all did. I had to take pictures with one hand (Bryson had to sit on my lap to see) with no flash (which is fine because I hate using a flash anyways and had to too much no this trip) from way far away from the stage. I didn't think the pictures would come out very good but they were decent considering the circumstance.
We ended the day with a yummy Red Robin dinner that was down the street from our hotel. Besides breakfast at Goofy's kitchen, it was our best meal of the trip. We really didn't eat much on this trip. Not sure why. In fact we only ate dinner a few times.
Friday, November 13
Our last day of magic. We were so excited for today because it was the first official day of Christmas in Disneyland. Decorations had been up all week but there were more, and brighter ones and more lights and...it just looked so cool. We got to the park and it was SO crowded. Because we had done all the rides we had wanted to earlier in the week when the crowds weren't there we turned around and headed over to California Adventure hoping it wasn't as bad over there. It wasn't and we were finally able to go on the really cool Toy Story ride. So cool we bought the game for the Wii. We then spotted Woody and Jessie and thought it was so cool to see Santa!
Bryson asked for a train set and green shoes. Maddy asked for an American Girl doll (thanks Chrisanna! I haven't heard the end of it since September :D)
After we had done all we wanted here, we braved it back to the crowds. Hearing a "check in employee" tell the person in front of us (who was having trouble getting in because he didn't get a handstamp on his way out earlier) "we are at capacity today so make sure you get a handstamp if you leave again otherwise we will not let you in" was real encouraging! But we made the most of it. We got ready to watch a really cool holiday parade. Probably the best parade we have ever seen. We then popped back over to California Adventure real quick to see the Pixar Parade (another really cool parade) and then back over to Disneyland to finish out the night at Tarzan's Treehouse and to see the Christmas Firework Spectacular over Sleeping Beauty's castle. Just an FYI real quick for those of you who don't know-Disneyland and California Adventure are just steps away from each other so "park hopping" is real easy.
The park was quickly filling up with people for the fireworks. I mean people were pouring in! We purposefully sat at the very front of the park for easy access out and I just kept thinking "where are these people going to go". Just to give those of you who are familiar with Disneyland a slight clue, we were at the very front of Main Street and this is what it looked like about 10-15 mins before the fireworks started. More people were still coming in.
Jeff and I went to Disneyland for our honeymoon in the summer of 2000 and even in the month of July never saw crowds like this. Crazy.
Real quick story-about 5 mins before the fireworks Bryson had to go to the bathroom (he timed that real well all throughout the trip). It looked like there was a bathroom just a few steps away so Jeff took him over. He quickly came back and said Mickey AND Minnie were over there. I hurried back over with the camera because you never see Mickey and Minnie together where you can take pictures with them. They were just about ready to leave and after a little pleading from me and another couple the security guy told us that they would be back after the fireworks. We were in a perfect spot to dart over there and we did. After a few minutes of waiting out comes Minnie...without Mickey!!! We were SO bummed. But, there were way too many happy and magical memories made that week to let that get us down.
We had such a fabulous trip and feel so blessed that we were able to go. It was a completely different perspective going with kids as opposed to by ourselves on our honeymoon but it was so much fun and I am so glad we did it.
You can see more of our pictures HERE
