The Happiest Place on Earth (part2)

Our second day we spend most of our time at California Adventure. We started off with the new playhouse disney show, which went over well and did the monsters inc. ride and the Muppet 3d show. I really like the shows, they are just as much fun as rides because they are so interactive. Then we did the Tower of Terror. It was a first for all of us. It was funny how scared people were to do it and then they would be amazed that Dallin was so little and exited about it. He would tell them "its just pretend scary!" That was a way fun ride. At one point I couldn't even tell if we were going up or down.

Carter having one of his many naps.

This is out of order but this is the Nemo submarine from our first day.

Another one from the first day. We waited until it was dark to do the small world because I read that it would be all lit up for Christmas. Seriously not disappointed, there were 70k lights on it! We happened to be in the right place at the right time, because as we waited to get on the ride all of the sudden the lights went out and some music started. Then it started snowing! It was not just a shot of confetti it looked real and lasted like 5 minutes. I think it was some kind of soap bubble solution or something. There was also a really elaborate slide show projected on the small world castle to go along with it. I was so glad that we got to see that before we went on the ride. The ride was all decked out in Christmas decoration to the max. They even played Christmas music and not just the small world song for the whole 15 minutes.

Another of order one from toon town. It is very late so I guess I am not thinking straight.

Back to day 2, here is Eden enjoying some cotton candy while Dallin soared over California. I really like how the rides are so unique there. There are so many different ways to make a ride totally unique.

The muppet show. On the second day I used my super old point and shoot camera because it was hard to help the kids with my big camera around my neck, but it was such a bummer! Bad pictures and I couldn't stand how slow it was. It would have been worth the effort to use my good camera.

Tanner loves Toy Story. He almost always has a Buzz or Woody doll with him. When he saw Woody walking down the street, he freaked out and shouted "There's my Woody!!!!" When he met him you would have thought he was hanging with his best friend.

Incredibles. Dallin and Eden were scared of them, but Tanner was up for meeting any character.

Handy Manny. When it got dark we watched the new Pixar Parade which was way cooler than the parade at Disneyland. It was very vivid and of course the kids were so familiar with the pixar movies. It was definately more entertaining.

Another moment I was so missing my camera. That is Cinderellas Castle with its Christmas lights.

All tuckered out after day 2. After California Adventure we ended up back at Disneyland for a few more rides. We did pirates of the caribean and the haunted mansion. Pirates was probably Dallin's other favorite ride. Eden hated the haunted mansion. After the first room, she clung to me with a vice grip and burried her face in my arms the whole time. I don't think she even saw anything. I thought it was cool how they changed it to the nightmare before Christmas for the holidays, it was completely different.

After the last rides of the evening we ate dinner at one of the fancy dining restaurants in New Orleans for a couple of reasons. First, we had corn dogs for lunch at california adventure and we felt so nasty about it that we swore them off for a year...at least! ick! Second, we were expending SO much energy walking around and carrying kids and lifting and serving them that we worked up huge appetites. Then we discovered something cool. At the fast food type restaurants we would each buy something for ourselves and get a 3 kids meals for the kids. Disneyland food is so expensive, but you don't really have a choice. 6 bucks will buy a kids meal with half a cup of mac and cheese, apple slices, and milk, it is so lame. I wasn't prepared for how much we would be spending on food. Then we realized that if we ate at the nice sit down restaurants and bought 2 big plates of food, it could feed the family and it wouldn't really cost more since we didn't have to buy kids meals, and the food is so much better. Wow, there are some really great restaurants in the park, I had no idea. We stuck with that plan after that and had some amazing prime rib and the best mexican food. Also we didn't feel bad about having wiggly kids at a fancy restaurant, because well, its Disneyland people, its all about kids.

Just before dinner dinner, we watched the pyrotechnic show Fantasmic over the lake that is AMAZING! It beat the pants off of the fireworks show on the other side of the park. Again we didn't have a great view, but at least the kids were awake. Eden got to see princesses again and Dallin love the sword fight on the pirate ship with pan and hook. After all of this fun day two ended with all kids asleep before we left the park. Thank goodness for this stroller. It really saved us from making grouchy tired kids walk or carrying 2 kids each. Because of this we were able to go go go all day everyday and let kids take naps when they were too tired to keep going. Our stroller is so wide that they had to unlock their special gate to let us into the park every day. We also got stared at all the time and people made a lot of comments. They kept asking if we had twins or triplets or where we got the stroller. I started just ignoring all of the staring, it was so silly. LD and Michelle, did you experience this when you went to Disney World?

This is the white water ride at California Adventure. I can't believe how out of order I am. You can see Peter in the light blue shirt and Dallin by him. Another fun thing at Adventure was the brand new Toy Story 4D adventure ride. It was really cool. It involved wearing 3D glasses and shooting targets. I really liked that one and at the end of the ride you walk out into a house that looks just like the one in the move. Like every ride every detail makes you feel like you are really there with the details!

A welcomed nap for Tanner. He was the hardest because he is two. Enough said.

Our last day there we went back to New Orleans, and toured pirate island and of course did the pirates ride again. The ride operaters really looked like pirates and Dallin asked them if they were real pirates. One of them said he wanted to steal Dallins treasures, so I guess Dallin thought they were. We also rode the big "real" pirate ship pictured below. Did I mention that Dallin is really into pirates right now. We also went to Critter Country and did Splash mountain and Winnie the Pooh and then Adventure Land's railroad coaster. At that point we had done every ride possible so we did the train around the whole park. That's right, we did every possible attraction (aside from the very few that Dallin was to short for) in both Disney Parks!

We still had a good part of the day so we made our way back through each land to do our favorite things. It was fun to get a chance to do the best stuff again. We had missed the monorail so we did that too. One final ride on Space Mountain and we were all very much done. Every day we left our hotel at 8am and returned after 10pm and I felt like I had just run a marathon. We were so tired and SORE. At least everyone slept pretty well since we were all so tired. I was glad to see all the fun come to an end even though it was so wonderful. Whew.

Our drive home took several hours longer than normal due to holiday travel, but it was very relaxing and Peter and I enjoyed the long time to visit and made the best of it. The last few hours we listened to all of our favorite music hits and analyzed each band's strengths and weaknesses. It was really fun to analyze all the different parts of the music and decide why they were famous and what makes them good. I hadn't listened to all of the great music from high school in a long time.

We definatly learned a lot on this vacation about what works and what doesn't for our family. One thing we will definatly not ever do again is go to Disney on a weekend and especially never ever on a holiday weekend. It was insanely busy. Only week days on a normal work week will do. Here are a few more out of order pics:

Princesses on the third day. Eden got to hug Cinderella on a couple of days but I didn't get a picture.

The big pirate ship ride.

Jungle cruise.

Our trip was another amazing chapter in our fairy tale lives. The End.