Disneyland and California Adventures!!!

Disneyland Day 1

Finally, after months of anticipation, we finally arrived at Disneyland. We had a 3 day park hopper pass, and we wanted to fit in as much as possible. The kids were so excited. It sure had changed a lot from the last time I was there. I think I was in 8th grade. California Adventures was just a parking lot back then. Now there is a nice parking structure and trams that take you right there. It was so fun looking around and seeing everyone so excited. Especially all the little kids.

Blue skies and only a light jacket. It was such a beautiful day. So different then the weather back home. It was really nice to get away from the cold for a while.

One of the first rides we went on was Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain. We quickly learned the best way to utilize fast pass tickets and we were able to get on a lot of rides that first day. The girls really liked Splash Mountain. (Well, at least Autumn did) It was one of the rides that we went on more then once. It was so fun watching Autumn's personality come out. She is such a quiet child (except at home) and seeing this new "roller coaster junkie" as Brian called her, was a lot of fun. There wasn't any ride she didn't dare try. From Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Railroad, Space Mountain, to the Matterhorn, she loved them all. After each new ride, that one became her new favorite. She usually road with Brian. He teased her saying she sounded like a little mouse squealing on the ride. So when she would ride with me she asked if she did. I didn't think she did, but then she decided to ride with me on the Matterhorn for the first time. I could not stop laughing!!!! She did squeal just like a little mouse on every hill and quick bend. The best was when we would pass the Abominable Snowmen!!! Funniest thing I've heard!!

It took a lot of convincing to get Brooklyn to ride Splash Mountain with us. I had gotten Fast Passes to it so it didn't take very long to get on the ride. Of course, Autumn loved it and said it was her favorite ride at that moment. Brooklyn enjoyed everything before and after the "big drop." She must not have hated the ride so too bad, because she rode on it again with us. Autumn got soaked the first time. She wanted to sit right in the very front. She was a good sport and sat there again the next time.

The Haunted Mansion was completely different from when I was little. The had it decorated with Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas. It is what happens when Christmas and Halloween collide. Hunter really liked this ride. Maybe it was because it was one of the few rides he COULD ride.

I think the longest line we stood in was It's a Small World. It took forever!! The line wrapped in, out and around everything around it. This was one of my favorite rides when I was little. This time everything was decorated for Christmas. It was worth the wait. and I was happy to be in the beautiful warm weather.

There was a giant coo coo clock on the front that had cute little characters that came out. It took a lot of effort to get Hunter to look at the camera to get a picture in front of it.

We hit Toon Town tog see if we could see Mickey. It was terribly busy there!!! We decided we would try another day. But Hunter had to get his picture taken in one of the toon cars.

We left Toon Town to go get a good spot for the Disney Parade. Hunter was so tired that he fell asleep. He was pretty tuckered out. He slept the whole time while we waited for the parade to start.

While waiting for the parade, we were able to see some fun Disney characters. They had a little Mary Poppins show going on and then we saw some of the characters on Alice and Wonderland. We got the girls a book for signatures and pictures.

California Adventures

The weather had been very nice, but we did get rained on one day. It started as a down pour. We all got soaked. We got some bags and put them over the kids to help keep them dry. There feet still got really wet and Autumn was pretty bummed out. We stuck it out for a little while and the ducked into some of the different shows. Brian and Autumn headed over to go on Tower of Terror. I took Hunter and Brooklyn to Playhouse Disney. It was nice inside, but most of all, dry! Hunter loved it. I was sad that Brian had my camera. It was so fun watching Hunter interact with what the characters were doing. After, I headed over to meet Brian and Autumn to ride Tower of Terror. Once again, it was a ride that we had to ride at least twice. It was so funny watching all these kids who were too afraid to ride react to seeing Autumn WANTING to ride it. She did admit that she was kind of scared of the story behind it, whether it lightning could really do that to a building, but she still enjoyed the ride. They snap a picture of you when the open the doors at the top. I snapped a picture of it with my camera, so it isn't the best, but still some good memories!!

There wasn't a lot of rides Hunter could ride. Many of the rides he wanted to go on, he was just a little too short.

Just like Disneyland has a parade with the Disney characters, California Adventures has a Pixar Parade. We got a really good spot at the front of the parade route. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be a good spot for taking pictures. So I tried my best but not many turned out very good. Oh well...it was still fun.

Last Day at Disneyland

We stared the day early with Magic Morning. It is when people with special passes get to enter the park 1 hour before general admission. We got Southern California City Passes and it included one magic morning. It was a little cold due to the rain storm the day before. But it still warmed up really nice.

We got to see a lot more characters this day and get some more pictures. We decided to go in Splash Mountain again. After we ran into Brar Bear. We also saw a Tigger, Eeyore, and a glimpse of Pooh Bear

If you notice, Hunter was not too happy while visiting Eeyore. He wanted his daddy to hold him so he was being really grumpy! Eeyore began playing with him and making kissing noises at him and soon had him smiling. It was really cute how some of the characters would interact with the kids.

Well, we couldn't go Disneyland without seeing Mickey. So we stood in the long line to see him. Actually, it didn't take as long as we had thought it would.

The kids got to learn how to become Princesses and Princes. They even got to dance with Snow white, Cinderella and Bell. If you look carefully, you can see all 3 kids doing the maypole with Snow White.

Hunter was so excited to be able to ride Autotopia and drive a car. He fell asleep just before we got there. But we woke him up so that he could ride it. He was so happy when he was given a little licence to drive. We still have it for him. He was so cute. He couldn't even see over the car. He did really good. Of course there was a cement block that prevented you from driving off course. Every once in a while he would run into it and hit would sent him flying from one side to the other. But he enjoyed every minute!!

Disneyland was so much fun. It was going to be hard heading home. It is fun to hear the kids talk about their trip. I love listening to Hunter talk about his favorite ride Buzz Lightyear and how scary it was going down the big hill on Pirates.

Worlds of Color at California Adventure

We ended our trip with the Worlds of Color show. It was really good, but I think I enjoyed the Fantasmic show better. It was kind of hard to see. We ended up behind a gazebo and it blocked a good portion of the show. I was amazed how high the water would spray up and the scenes that we watched on it.
If you look closely, you can see a part from Pocahontas.If I remember right, this was part of the grand finale and showed a little of The little Mermaid.

It was a wonderful trip and I am excited to be able to take the kids back again someday!

Universal Studios

Universal studios was completely different then expected. It was a beautiful day. One of the warmest days there. We had to walk a big hill from the parking lot to get to the shuttle that would take us there. We waited in line quite a while. When we finally got on the bus, it took us up a hill and dropped us all off. We all joked that we could have walked up the hill in less time then we stood in line for the bus. We decided to head to the rides Jurassic Park and The Mummy. Brian's sister said to hit them early or the lines get too long. Along the way, we ran into one of Hunter's friends.... Curious George. So we had to stop and get some pictures.

We decided to ride Jurassic Park first. We had to ride some really steep escalators to get there. I think there were 4 sets of them to get down to where the rides were. Autumn wanted to ride with us but she was about an inch too short. She got really mad at us for going on it without her. Brian and I got put in the very front of the car. I decided to let Brian take the outside. It was a good thing because he kept getting sprayed by the dinosaurs.

We saw a lot of dinosaurs and it was a lot of fun. Then it went into this big building. At the end of the ride we went down an 80 ft fall straight down. Brian got soaked!!!! I stayed pretty dry, just a little on my face. After, we decided not to ride the Mummy because Autumn could not ride it with us. We went up and rode the Simpson's ride.

We decided to go on the Universal Tour. We waited in line for 2 hours!!! But it was a good tour. They took us into a place where we got to experience King Kong 4D. It was really good. It got Autumn squealing. There were some huge spiders that came at us. Hunter was also fun to watch (he also looked so cute in his 3D glasses). Watching my kids' reactions to the different things was one of my favorite things about our trip.

We got to see a lot of places where they filmed movies. We even got stuck in a flood! (They add milk to the water so you can see it on film. Just an interesting fact.)

I can't remember what movie they used this subway scene in, but it also had a flood and a gas tanker that almost slid into us.
"Oh no! There's a man in the water!" Our tour guide was quite the entertaining guy! This is where we met Bruce (No, no the shark or Nemo). That is what Steven Speilberg named the shark on Jaws.

After having a nice snack, Bruce decided to come pay us a visit.

Anyone like Desperate Housewives? I don't watch it, but I thought I would take a few pictures. If anyone recognizes whose house it is, let me know. It was a beautiful set. There were flowers all over.

War of the Worlds-a movie I have seen. So I thought might take a picture of it.

The Adams Family house. I think there was someone looking out the window.

It isn't a Christmas visit if you don't see the Grinch in Whoville.

It was a fun day. We decided to cut it short. It was open a lot longer but we decided to head back to the hotel a little earlier and get some rest for our last 2 days at Disneyland. On our way out we ran into the people who do character drawings. So we decided to get one done. It was fun to see how it turned out. ( sorry for the bad picture of it)

The San Diego Zoo

I never thought that the San Diego Zoo was so . . . hilly and green. I was truly amazed. It was nothing like what I had expected it to be like. I guess I'm not sure what I really was expecting. Maybe something more like a bigger Hogle Zoo. It was still very nice. We decided to start the day off on a tour of the zoo. We rode a double-decker bus that took us around the whole zoo. We were able to see about 70% of the zoo from the bus. It saved us from a lot of walking. I tried to get a picture of everyone on the bus, but Hunter was having one of those 2 year old moments and was being uncooperative. Oh well, such is life.

There was a really cute play place that had some playground equipment the kids got to play on for a while. You had to cross a little bridge that had water that would spray over it. We tried to get a picture of the water, but it was kind of hard to predict. In that area of the zoo, there were all these little statues and figures that the kids had to get pictures with. Hunter was really funny about these. We had to go all the way back to one area just so he could sit on the tortoise.



We rode the sky ride over to the other side of the zoo to get a better look at the polar bears then make our over to the aviaries. Brooklyn and Hunter rode with us while Autumn rode with Brian's parents. It was fun watching the kids' faces as we rode high above the zoo. It got a little chilly, so we were glad to get back on the ground. When we got to the polar bear exhibit, there weren't there. We were a little bummed out until we saw one of the keepers bring out food. So we decided to wait a round a little while. The kids had fun playing in a little cave and poking their heads out with the seals. They also had to get their picture taken next to the figures of the life size polar bears. Hunter loved the baby bear. He would not go anywhere until Grandma took a picture of him with it. too Soon after both polar bears were let out to enjoy their treat.



We wanted to go see the panda bears, but the line was insanely long, so we decided to go to the aviary instead. It was amazing. There was a large waterfall in the middle of it and you were so close that you could almost touch these beautiful birds. Actually, there was one bird that was so friendly that he sat on the path following people. The zoo keeper actually had us help him try to catch him. He said that sometimes the birds are so familiar with people, they follow them out of the aviary. He finally flew to another area and hopefully will stay away from the walkway.
The last area we decided to see was the monkeys and gorillas. When we got to the gorillas, two of them were playing. They played so gently with each other. Biting and pulling at one another. Hunter was really cute when we got to the monkeys. He is my little monkey so I had to take some photos of him with the monkeys.

It was a long day, but a lot of fun. We didn't stay too long because we still needed to drive up to Anaheim that day. But not before stopping and getting a picture in front of our last stop before leaving, the flamingos. A very fun day and hopefully memorable for the kids.