Long Awaited (And Winded)...Day Two!

My heavens. I thought I would never get to day two. Life is crazy after a vacation.

Also, I don't really look forward to time spent uploading images to Blogger.

Sorry.

Day two was spent at:

California Adventure!

I was bummed big time about not bringing my wider angle lens on the trip. It's a pricier lens so I thought it would be best not to drag it all over Disney, but that picture above? It would have been so much better if you could have seen all of California instead of just the "liforni". Oh well. This picture is sweet too:


I am a total sucker for the Mickey hats. I wanted some so badly on day one, but we were so busy that the day got away from us. Before we knew it, it was time to find dinner, and who really wants to wear their Mickey Ears at a restaurant outside of Disney?

Oh wait. My kids do!

So we waited until the next day when we would have maximum time allotted to wearing the Mickey Ears since we would be in the parks until at least 10:00 in the evening.


First we strolled down the back lot and took in the sites of different sets. The kids didn't really get it, but I thought it was so fun. Look here, the real sky almost matches the fake sky:

(Yes, The Little Man has on another pair of Mickey Ears in baseball hat style. The sunglasses came with this particular hat, so it was a sure pick for The Little Man.)

Since The Little Man had two options for ears that day, we let The Girl have two choices as well...We are such suckers!

Seriously, though! How cute are those?

In the back lot, we got to meet Sully:

Since Monsters Inc. is currently one of The Little Man's favs right now, this was a big deal. I am just so thrilled about being at the parks when there were such low crowds. In addition to being able to ride whatever we wanted whenever, and however many times we wanted to, we also could walk right up to all the characters and have photos taken. We have had trips in the past where we have waited up to two hours to meet characters, so this was a super big treat.

Speaking of Monsters Inc., here we are stuck on the Monsters Inc. ride. Yup, we got stuck on the ride and had to be escorted out of the ride. While we waited for our escort, we got this snap:

Thankfully, we were almost done with the ride anyways, and truth be told, it wasn't a real must see, so we walked out, and walked on.

Next up: The Tower of Terror!

Oh yes we did! Some people might say that age four isn't ideal for the Tower, but we did it twice! I can't say that the kids absolutely loved it, but they did like it...once they knew what to expect. That meant the first time around, it was a bit scary.

(By the way, the scary part to them was not the stuff surrounding the ride ie the story, the spooky ghost stuff, etc. it was the dropping feeling of the ride itself)

So, if you could look into this picture a bit more closely, you would see some pretty scared faces. I couldn't find the picture from the second time around when the kids actually enjoyed the ride, and I think The Little Man even put his hands up a few times!


Here they are, survivors of the Tower, and they were tear free...see I'm not so bad.


Right around the corner waited this guy:

The Little Man was pumped about getting to meet Mr Incredible.

Next we went to ride Soarin'. Our family loves this ride like no other. However, we stopped here for a pic on the way to the ride. If you know my Hubby, you know why we had to get this shot:


Also over by our favorite ride, were these guys:

Both kids were happy to see McQueen and Mater. I was sad again about my not so wide angle lens. Bummer.

The sadness did not last long! I am happy again in line waiting to go Soarin' over California for the second time in a row:

(Don't you love that the Mickey Ears fit me just as well as they fit the kids! Honestly, I think the hat fit a bit snugger on The Little Man than it did on me...I am a peanut head.)

After getting our fill of Soarin', we had to get our fill of lunch.

Oh boy! Park food!

Next we headed over to Paradise Pier. There are all sorts of fun rides there. Our favorite was Toy Story Mania. Too bad they didn't have a fast pass for this ride because it was the longest line that we had to stand in the entire trip at 40 minutes. I realize that isn't very long, but we'd been spoiled. Unfortunately, we only rode it once. We did get to ride Mulholland Madness, Jumping Jellyfish, California Screamin' (for The Hubs and the Father-in-Law because the kids were too short), and Mickey's Fun Wheel. At this point, I started suffering from some sort of weird motion sickness type feeling, and thought it would be best for me to skip the big Ferris wheel type ride that had gondolas that moved along the wheel as it turned. The kids really liked this ride, and I really liked that their daddy could take them and I could just watch.

Here's The Little Man looking very little:


Next up was the Aladdin show. This was a great time for my nauseated body to take a rest and sit back to enjoy a little production. I was nervous about how the kids would react to having to forgo the rides for a bit and sit still, but they were captivated by the show, as it was totally wonderful, and a completely reasonable length of time.

Sadly, I still remember all of the words to all of the songs, however, do not ask me what I did yesterday.

While we were waiting for show time to start, the kids played with Grandma and Grandpa in line. I loved this shot:


This one too. Trying to grab a bit of rest from the busy day:


Here we are waiting for the show to start:


After the show, was another show. The Pixar parade! I was determined to have us watch the parade. It would have all of The Little Man's favorite characters. Of course, right before the parade started, The Little Man had to go potty. The Hubs ran him to the closest potty, but we didn't get to see each other again until AFTER the parade. I got to see none of his reactions. I was told they were good and he really liked it. The Girl enjoyed herself too. I am trying to forget that we watched this parade apart.

Parade goodness:






Then we had a chance to head back to Disneyland for the night time festivities they had. I was interested in a light show and the fireworks. We also had time to squeeze in a few more rides that we missed and enjoyed from the day before and wanted to do again. Top on The Little Man's to do list: Space Mountain and The Buzz Lightyear ride. Top on The Girl's list: The Matterhorn (sadly we didn't get to this one), Top on my list: The Pirates of the Caribbean. We also squeezed in The Jungle Cruise.

People, The Jungle Cruise is pretty cheesy during the daytime hours, but let me tell you, at night, it takes on a whole new level of cheese. Even the kids were making comments when we got off.

Oh yeah, we also had to eat dinner in the park that night. Although lunch was OK, dinner that night...was so wrong. I could get the shivers just thinking about it. What made it even worse, was the price. Heavens to Betsy, that should be illegal.

After dinner was the light show called Fantasmic. It was good, but people were finding spots to watch the show HOURS before it even started. We opted to ride Pirates of the Caribbean instead as well as some other stuff.

In line, having fun at Pirates of the Caribbean:

(Wow! That's one great pic! I had to have a pic of me with both sets of Mickey Ears on otherwise it just wouldn't have been fair. No worries, I just wore the ears for the pics. Can't you tell from that look on my face, "Take the picture already!")

When we came back it was difficult to find a spot with premium views. I am sure the show would have been really good had we been able to see it from a great spot, but what we did see was great too.


After Fantasmic, we decided to stay in the same spot for the fireworks that started promptly after.

That was an even worse viewing spot. We tried moving, only to make things even worse. I am a little sad that we missed the fireworks, but it was such a fun and full day, it was hard to care too much. I mean check out The Little Man as he got carried into the hotel that night:

I think the last time he was able to be carried while still sleeping was somewhere around age one.


Oh, and finally, The Hubs wanted me to post this pic of his high score on the Buzz Lightyear ride:

Congrats, Honey! You beat the socks off of a four year old...

Tomorrow (or next week, whenever) we get to have some downtime on the beach.

Ahhh, the beach.

Be Merciful to me Blogger Photo Uploader...Day 1 of Disney!

Day one of our trip was Disneyland herself. Or himself...whatever. The plan was to get in as many rides as we could before dinner. Not being a fan of amusement park food, but alas a lover of food, I planned our day around meals. (It's pure craziness to be me, I tell you. Craziness!) Thankfully, we planned our trip during a very slow part of the year for Disney, as well as going in the middle of the week, so this was totally doable. The only downside to this was that there would be no parades or fireworks on this day. The upside: We were out by DINNER TIME. I ate at a normal restaurant, and didn't flinch when the bill came because I actually ENJOYED MY MEAL. There is just something so hurtful about paying big bucks for nasty food. It just plain stings. Also, it got pretty cool at night, and do you know that I don't really get along well with the cool?

So we soaked up our daylight hours and pretty much walked onto whatever we wanted to ride. I am not exaggerating when I say that we literally stood in maybe five or six lines the WHOLE TRIP. The kids were rock stars and much more brave than I expected. They rode every ride we suggested to them, and loved it.

This is when I realized the blissful stage that we were in. First, we traveled (for the first time) with no diapers or bottles. HELLO! Enough said. Second, no one needed naps. OK, I TOTALLY could have snoozed several times on this trip, but what I mean is we weren't scheduling our riding and park time around nap time so we could avoid a cranky toddler as we have in trips past. Third, even though The Girl wasn't too into The Princesses, The Little Man was totally into his characters, and it was so fun to have a change of pace in the characters we were interested in seeing. Since The Girl was over The Princesses, she willingly went along wherever The Little Man wanted to go. Fourth (and maybe last, I'm not sure I could come up with something else just as blissful), the kids were both tall enough to ride all the rides except for two. That meant we weren't child swapping the whole day. We ALL rode the same rides TOGETHER. It really made for a nice time together.

Then, when it was all over, and we were starting to get hungry and tired of all the walking, we LEFT AND ATE DINNER SOMEWHERE ELSE.

(I'm crazy)

Now onto the pics:

The kids in the magical mini-van:

For some reason the kids LOVED this mini-van. They had so much fun with this car, I thought that Disney was going to just be a side note. They have been begging us to get one since we got home, and even had an *almost* tearful goodbye.

The craziness has been passed down to the next generation.

Speaking of crazy, it was right after that last picture was taken that I realized that there was a high probability that there may not be any pictures of me taken on the entire trip, you know, because I am the only one that seems to takes pictures. So I decided a self portrait was in order just in case later on in life we wondered where mom was.

Here I am:

Fabulous.

Then I got excited as we neared Disney, and I loved the line of Palm Trees:


And the fact that the street name was Disneyland Drive:


Heading into the park (and starting the day off with crazy hair...it's not like it was going to look great all day anyway):


Waiting for the tram with Grandma. (I think the key to having a successful Disney trip is bringing along the grandparents. We LOVE having them come with):


Right inside the door, we got to meet up with Goofy!


Then right around the corner, was the Big Guy himself!


I was attempting to get the kids with the castle in the background here.

However.

However, the kids really wanted nothing to do with having their picture taken at the entrance of the park, and really just wanted to get INTO THE PARK ALREADY! Also, The Little Man was complaining about the sun burning out his eyes when he looked at me.

Whatever.

So not exactly the photo I was hoping for:


A little snip-it of Frontier Land:


Waiting for Big Thunder Mountain to come and pick us up:


What a ride!


(Hey! I did make an appearance!)


Now we come to the highlight of the day. It could also have been the highlight of the whole trip for me. In Tomorrow Land, there is a place where your kids can be apart of a Jedi training show. With The Little Man's love for Star Wars running VERY deep, this show was a MUST see for us. I also desperately wanted The Little Man to get picked to be part of the show so he could get "trained" as a Jedi Knight and also "fight" Darth himself. Here the kids are, front row, waiting for the show to start:


Then, the best possible outcome that could have happened, happened. BOTH kids were picked to be part of the show. I guess, if I were being TOTALLY truthful, The Little Man was picked, and The Girl followed him up and made herself a part of the show as well. I really don't know who was more excited, the kids or The Hubs and I. I was literally shaking with excitement.

Again, the crazy is uncontrollable at times.

Here's The Girl getting her Jedi robe thing-y and finding her spot:


Of course, The Little Man, he found a spot where I couldn't see him well. Arg.

The Girl practicing her moves:


The Little Man learning how to duck:


The Young Jedi Knights with their certificates of completion:

So, you know, it's totally official now.

Let me tell you, The Little Man, he used those moves on pretty much anyone he came across all day. Other kids would try to make friends with him, and in return, he would fight them off with an imaginary light saber. So, we looked like really awesome parents. We figured the only thing left to do was to totally continue to encourage the behavior, and we bought him a light-up light saber to use for the rest of the night/trip.

Awesome.

Here's the kids and The Hubs at the entrance/exit of Tomorrow Land:


In Tomorrow Land, they have a ride called Autotopia. Basically, it allows children to think that they are driving cars around. It was always a ride that we have avoided in the past because A) There is a height requirement B) The line is usually ridiculously long and C) It just doesn't seem that interesting to us adults because we do enough driving in our real lives.

With no lines and children that were tall enough to drive their own cars (with adult companions), we pretty much had no reason at all to skip it this time around. The kids really loved this ride! They had a great time "driving" around the course. I made The Little Man look at me for a picture when he was driving. He flashed me a quick smile and then sternly told me, "Mom, don't distract me while I am trying to watch the road."

I have no clue where he's ever heard that before:


Thankfully, The Hubs got the same picture of The Girl in their vehicle.


The next ride was my favorite of the day. It was the Nemo submarine ride. It wasn't that the ride was so fantastic that I could barely stand it, but it was way more than I expected it to be, and also the kids were in total awe as we went around in a submarine and looked for Nemo in an underwater world. Here's one of my favorite pics of just awe:


Of course we took in some 3D action with the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience movie. Thumbs down for the movie, thumbs up for wearing 3D glasses:


We got crazy and let the kids ride the Matterhorn together instead of making each one of them ride with an adult. When we got off and looked at them they had fun smeared all over their faces and also, I think they were close to falling out of the car a couple of times. The Girl will say over and over that this was her favorite ride:


And even though we traveled without diapers, bottles, or naps, we were still smart enough to make sure we rented a stroller for the whole day. Truth be told, if we go again and our children are teenagers, we will still probably rent a stroller. If the kids don't ride in them that's fine because they are perfect for carting around all of the stuff you bring into the park with you.

And, alas, at the end of the day, even big kids get tired of walking:




Tired, cold, and hungry we called it quits for day one in the parks and headed somewhere to get dinner and then hit the hay a bit early so we could do day two at California Adventure in the morning.

To be continued...

Guess What We Did!

We surprised the kids with a trip to Disneyland!

For the next few posts, I will be re-capping our adventure for my mommy-heart, so if that isn't your bag, come back later. I am sure I'll resume my random rambling shortly. For now, I do feel like I want to document this trip because it was very special. And because I don't want to forget the small details that melted my heart. Here's how it all started:

I had been wanting to take the kids to Disney for close to a year now. I just felt like the time for the kids to feel like it was "Magic" was coming close to an end. The Girl had already decided she wasn't that into princesses anymore claiming that they were "for babies". However, The Little Man was getting more and more into Star Wars, Monsters Inc., Toy Story, Cars, Mickey, and all things Disney. I really wanted make sure we made it there in time to see him light up with excitement as he saw all these things come to life. I knew The Girl would have a great time too, despite her lack of enthusiasm for princesses.

As we tried to make plans for the trip, stuff kept coming up. We would talk about a trip, but soon enough, there was something that would keep us from going. When it finally looked like we might be able to pull the trip off, I got nervous about telling the kids because I didn't want to disappoint them if it had to be canceled or re-arranged again. That's when we decided it might be fun to surprise them. Do you remember when we did that before? I loved surprising them with our Durango trip!

Coincidentally enough, sometime around the beginning of the summer, the kids started talking non-stop about what it would be like to go to Disneyland. The Little Man kept saying, "I really want to go to Disney. I've been before, but I was a baby and I don't remember. I want to go as a big boy so I'll never forget." That went along with, "Can I please go to Disney as a big boy?" As well as when you would ask him what he wanted to do this weekend/for Fall Break/for a special day, he would say, "I think we should go to Disney."

Disney was on the brain.

The Girl did nothing but encourage the obsession. She would tell him all about when we had gone before, how she met all the princesses, and the fun times she had on all the different rides. By the way they always talked about it, you would have thought they were totally in-the-know on the whole trip, and were just so super excited that they couldn't stop talking about it. Alas, we did keep it a big surprise until the very end.

We decided that we would tell them what we were doing when we picked The Girl up from school the day we were leaving. At that point, we would blindfold the kids and put on our Mickey Ears. When they took off their blindfolds, they would have to guess (based on the Ears) what we were going to do for the rest of the day. Thankfully, my mom was able to video tape the whole thing.

I am so happy I have this priceless gem:

Big Boy Love

The Little Man and I were discussing his birthday. You know, the one coming up in EIGHT MONTHS!!

You can never be too prepared.

I was trying to tease him by telling him that they were going to cancel his birthday this year and he would have to just stay four for one more year. Of course, he FREAKED out.

I guess that it wasn't that funny of a joke to him.

p: Why would they cancel my birthday?!
me: Because, you need to stay four. You can't turn five
p: Why!?!
me: Because I need you to stay four forever.
p: Why? I want to be five.
me: Because then you'll be a big boy, and I want you to stay a baby boy.
p: (coming towards me with a slight grin and wrapping his arms around me) Don't worry mom, even if I am a big boy, I'll still snuggle you.

Now that's a boy who knows what his momma needs.

In Case You Thought I Forgot...

Well, OK, I almost did. I mean, I never actually forgot that I needed to take the kids' Halloween pictures, but I did lose track of time and found myself on Halloween day taking the pictures. So I did them, right on time, the morning of Trick-or-Treat.

Here are Cleopatra and Black Spider-Man (with the back on):



Lounging like a Queen:






Here, I tried to pose The Little Man with this cool lunge and spider-web throwing thing, but he couldn't figure out the lunge very well...This is the best we got:


So we stuck with him showing off his muscles:


What's that you say? You want to know where the pictures of the pumpkins are? The pumpkins that people carve for Halloween?

Oh, those.

Yup, those I did forget.

OK. Sometimes I Like Snow

We are wrapping up two days of no school due to a Fall snow storm that started on Tuesday evening, and is continuing even now as I type on Thursday evening. I would say it's safe to guess that we have had about 18 inches of the white stuff fall. Who knows exactly, but it's a lot. Not the most that I have ever seen, but still enough.

The first day that we had school called off was also, coincidentally, the first day The Girl has ever had a snow day. She had no clue what it meant. True to herself, she cried because she was going to miss school, and tried to argue a way back into getting to go. I literally had to explain that no one was going to be there and the building would be locked. I guess she thought I was just being lazy and didn't want to go out into the snow. Thankfully, after a day of baking, watching movies, and playing in our jammies all day, today went much more smoothly when I told her there was still no school today. There was actually a little smile on her face when I told her she got to stay home another day.

Today proved to be just as fun as yesterday. There is just something about having all of us under one roof, together, and with nowhere to go. It's just so fun and relaxing. I was surprised that the day didn't just fly right by like they usually do. I mean, I wouldn't say that time felt like it was standing still, but I don't feel like I am left wondering where the day went. We had a great time baking, playing indoors, watching movies, playing outdoors, and just being.

Together.

With nowhere else to go.

It was happy.

Even though it was cold.

Sibling happiness:


Don't forget the snow dog:


It doesn't look like much snow until you see some of the drifting on the roof on the left.

(Yes, I realize that our home is two different colors in this picture. That is a blog for another time.)

(OK, I'll just tell you. The painters started painting the house the day before the storm. Now we must wait until the snow melts and we are dry enough to finish. In the meantime, we are green and pink. It's cool though. I might go with those colors for Christmas decorating this year.)

My two favorite men. I think this might be my favorite picture of them:


The Girl all bundled up:


Yes, I know there is no picture of me. While I am happy we have had snow days, I still do not care for snow...which is why I snapped these pictures from the garage...still in my jammies.

We don't need a picture of that.

A Change of Face

I've just returned from a Mommy's Weekend Away. As much as it was so needed, I did actually miss everyone. It is still so surprising to me that I can find so much joy in being able to wake, eat, and in general, just do stuff WHEN EVER I WANT. It's weird because I don't really feel all that trapped in my everyday life, but when I have this small freedom, oh the freedom! It feels so good.

Oh ya, the good friends and food added to all the happiness.

Upon returning, it was back to the same song and dance. Back to school, sibling tiffs...uh, I mean love, and CHORES. Oh, the chores.

Although it shouldn't be funny when your kids are naughty, sometimes, it just is. Last night, The Little Man came out of the play room looking like this:





me: Buddy! What is all over your face?
p: Markers.
me: Why did you mark all over your face with markers?
p: Because I hit my sister with a toy.
me: What?
p: I hit sister with a toy so I wrote all over my face.
me: Huh? I heard you say that you hit your sister with a toy, but I don't know why you would write all over your face.
p: Because! I threw a toy at sister and it hit her right here (pointing to her his mouth)!

I really couldn't deliver a consequence for these shenanigans. Seriously, I can't figure out what was really going on, and also, I can't stop laughing at him for ratting himself out about something completely different than what I was originally inquiring about.

He did look a bit sorry and disappointed in himself if that helps.

He may have been trying to copy this look:

Hubs let him get his face painted this weekend during a Fall Festival in our neighborhood.

I was thankful that this morning, he felt like it was a better choice to do this instead:


No scrubbing required.

(I still can't get over him just sitting around watching TV like this.)