Disneyland Again...

On Friday of our trip, we headed back to Disneyland/California Adventures again!  This time we used our "early entry" ticket so we could get into Mickey's Toontown an hour early!   I am really glad we had this feature to use, I think its the only we way were able to score pictures with Mickey Mouse and his friends.  The lines to get pictures with these guys during regular park hours are insane and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have wasted spent the time waiting just for a picture!

We were able to get pictures we more than just the Mickey Crew this day so I just collaged all of the character pictures together.

 Zane had been asking us since the first day we stepped foot into California Adventure to ride on the Mickey Ferris Wheel - this day, we finally were able to make our way over there.  There are two different cars you can pick to ride - a stationary car or a swinging car.  I decided if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right and ride a swinging car.  Um, lets just say...I am not sure I'd think that was the "right way" next time we go!  Zane loved it, Landon was fine with it...it was me who was not a fan!  I am not scared of heights, I have never been scared of/on a ride before, I don't get motion sick - I figured there would be no problem and it would be fun.  It scared the crap out of me!  Guess I'm a wimp!  Oh well, glad I did it, just won't do it again!

We did ride more rides that day...but its sort of hard to take pictures while riding, but between Josh and I if one wasn't riding the other would try to snap a picture or two...more for memory sake than anything else!

Both boys were so good on this trip...but Zane just amazed me!  He never once complained of being hot, not once complained of being tired, not once did he ask for something at any of the souvenir shops (not that we frequented them much), not once did he throw a fit because he/we couldn't/wouldn't do something he requested...he was seriously so laid back, happy and genuinely thankful to be there!

That particular day at Disneyland/CA we never left for a "break" back at the hotel.  We got there at 8 a.m. and didn't leave until 9 p.m.  We headed into Downtown Disney to grab some dinner and afterwards we surprised Zane with a new car from RideMakerz.  This place was awesome!  Its basically the "Build a Bear" for boys, but instead of bears, its cars.  You start out by picking your car's "shell", you shop for accessories and then you build the car pretty much by yourself - he (and Josh I think) were in heaven!

What a great day at Disney!

Sea World

On Thursday (9/6) of our trip to sunny CA, we drove 90 minutes south to San Diego and enjoyed a day at Sea World!  We picked a perfect day in the sense there weren't many people there at all - place was pretty wide open...but it was probably one of the hottest days we had while in CA.  I totally expected it to be cooler since we were closer to the ocean, but once we got into the park that cool ocean breeze was a distant memory.  By the way...there is NO shade at Sea World!

First thing we did while there was head to the Shamu show and we purposely sat up front in the "soak zone" so we could cool off!  It worked, we got soaked and cooled off - thanks to the hot sun, we also dried up pretty quick too (but were left with the feel of salt everywhere on ourselves)!

They have a little Sesame Street Land at Sea World now - we lucked out and happened to walk through it just as Elmo and Cookie Monster were coming out for photos!  Took Landon a minute to warm up to the fact the monsters he watches on TV were now standing there in front of him and trying to give him a hug - but he got used to it and humored us with a photo!  Zane of course had no problem at all jumping into the picture!  He's a little old for Sesame Street, but he still got a kick out of seeing these guys!

While at Sea World - Zane was brave enough to "pet" a manta ray - just like Landon with the monsters, it took Zane a little while to warm up to touching these guys, but once he did he was so proud of himself!  If you ask Zane what they felt like, he'll say they were "slimy soft" - I agree, but I kinda liked the feel of them!  Landon had absolutely NO interest in touching these fish - I tried!

Sea World was probably my least favorite park we visited while down there, but it was still a lot of fun and the boys had a blast, so that is all that matters!

Universal Studios

On our 2nd day of park hopping, we headed into LA and went to Universal Studios!

 It was pretty empty (thanks to being a week day and kids back in school) which was great when we kept running into different characters...no lines to get pictures taken!  Zane was in character heaven!

The first "ride" we went on was the tram that goes through the different movie sets and has some "real life" simulations - anyone who has been to Universal knows what tram I'm talking about.  I told Josh that I didn't think this was a good idea to do with Zane - he can get very anxious if he doesn't know what's going on and he scares very easily - turns out, I was right! 

 It didn't help that our tram BROKE DOWN!  The brakes locked up (I only know that because I'm married to a technician that has a keen sense of smell for broken down vehicles) and we were stuck - a non-moving tram meant no breeze, which meant very sticky hot people and also meant an even more concerned Zane :(  Of course we assured him over and over that everything was fine, but he honestly thought this was part of the ride and kept asking what was happening and what was going to happen next etc!  Once they brought the mechanics down to check out the tram and figured out that this tram wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, they opted to bring down a new tram for us to all transfer too.  Apparently, no park-goers are every allowed to just willy nilly walk around the fake streets and get up close and personal with the Hollywood facads so when they brought down the new tram, they also brought a host of security with them to stand at every 10 feet of the little "street" we had to walk down - I personally thought the whole ordeal was pretty cool so of course snapped a few pics :)  By the way, Landon just munched on crackers the entire time and didn't have a care in the world!

This whole tram adventure pretty much ruined Zane for most of the rest of the day.  He didn't have a lot of trust in us to go on any other rides there (until he saw the Transformer ride, then he was cool with it!) and he was very anxious and overly cautious about any "new" place we walked to at Universal.

Of course while we were at Universal we had to play tourist and take pictures with all of the fun "sets" they have set up!

Josh and I love Universal Studios and always have...but its safe to say that it wasn't Zane's favorite place!  If we were to do the whole thing over again, would we still take Zane on the tram ride...in a heartbeat!  Even though it freaked him out at times and he had a meltdown or two - he has told everyone who asks him about his trip about the tram ride and everything he saw on it and also lets them know "he wasn't happy about it" all of the time, but never fear he did think some parts of it were pretty cool - his favorite was the plan crash we drove by, haha!

 

Disney Day 1 Cont'd - Cars Land

After spending all morning and most of the afternoon at Disneyland we decided to head back to the hotel for a little bit to cool off.  When we booked this trip many months ago, we pretty much chose our hotel based on the pool features alone (and a good recommendation from a friend...thanks Andrea).  There was a splash park and a beach entry kiddy pool in one area and then a regular pool in a totally different fenced in area...we loved this because we knew we wouldn't have to worry as much about Landon just taking a leap into the deep end (kid has absolutely NO fear when it comes to water or pretty much anything for that fact).  Turns out our decision to book our hotel based on the water features alone was a pretty good decision!  The boys had a blast!

 After a dip in the pool and some dinner we headed back over to the park and decided to go into California Adventure and check out the new Cars Land...this place was awesome!  My pictures don't do any justice.  

This is by far the busiest area of both parks combined, but luckily that night we all got onto Luigi's Flying Tires pretty quick and Josh and Zane were able to get right on to the most popular ride in the area Radiator Springs Racers even though there was a 75 minute wait (we may or may not have pulled the D-card on this one)!  I was never able to get on this one, they wouldn't give us a "child-swap pass" since it was too close to closing time and every other time we went they didn't care about us pulling the D-card and we refused to wait 2 hours for a ride!  But from what Josh and Zane told me, it was a pretty freakin' cool ride!

 While Josh and Zane were on the Racers ride, Landon and I walked (well, he strolled) around Cars Land to really check it out and snap a few pictures! 

  
We were lucky enough to catch Mater right before he was headed into the garage for the night - Landon wasn't too sure about the friendly tow-truck, but he humored me for a quick picture!

Definitely a wonderful first day and night at Disneyland/California Adventure!!

Disney Day 1 - Character Breakfast

I have been to Disneyland many times in my life and have never done a Character Breakfast!  A couple of friends highly recommended them, so we put it on our to-do list when planning the trip for the boys. 

We woke up bright and early, Tuesday, September 4th and the boys found presents on the table that had been delivered from none other than Mickey Mouse while they were sleeping!!  On the card it invited them to come and have breakfast with some of Mickey's friends - Zane was beyond excited and very mesmerized with how Mickey could get into our hotel room while we were sleeping to drop off presents :)

Once we got to the breakfast the fun really began!  There was an endless amount of all you can eat delicious food at your fingertips...there were Disney characters running around like crazy and kids and adults alike with smiles as wide as the sea - it was AWESOME!

Landon wasn't too thrilled with the bouncing characters at first - but as usual, I tortured him into a few pictures - had to show him that they were harmless!

Zane on the other hand was ecstatic with furry creatures and was more than willing to pose for pictures!

One of the guys who worked there {David} really took a liking to our family, especially Landon and he really helped with getting Landon to be "ok" with the characters.  David also went and sought out characters that were held up at other tables and brought them right over to us and helped in taking some photos for us as well!

David did well, because in no time, Landon was "ok" with the characters and even posed for a few pictures for me!

And I couldn't miss out on a photo with my favorite childhood character :)

And of course a family photo :)  Even Josh was thrilled to be there!!

After stuffing our bellies and saying good-bye to the characters - we headed out to ride some rides!  Zane was tall enough to go on every ride and he enjoyed every one of them!  There wasn't one ride he wouldn't go on!  Thanks to the "child swap" pass - he got to enjoy most rides twice (once with mommy and once with daddy)!  Landon was able to go on all but probably 5 or 6 rides at Disneyland and he too enjoyed every one he went on!  We really lucked out and never had to really wait in line (most was maybe 15 minutes).

And an attempt at a family photo (of course both kids cannot be looking in the same direction at the same time, ever) before we headed back to the hotel for a midday break and a cool-off in the pool.

Yes, we were all wearing matching shirts...we were that family for half of the day!!!  

And I might add, we received many compliments as well :)

Huntington Beach

We are back!  Did you miss us?!!
I took over 500 pictures and am starting to go through them.  I am sure no one reading this blog wants to see all 500 (but if you do, I'm happy to share, haha)...so I'll do my best to narrow it down a bit.  There will be multiple posts from our week's vacation and will probably take me a couple of days to finish! 

We arrived in sunny California around 9:30 a.m. on Monday, September 3rd, picked up our rental car and headed to Anaheim (we flew into Long Beach) and thankfully we were able to check into our hotel early!  After getting settled into our new home for the next week we headed off to my sister Shauna's and her husband Jake's house and then to Huntington Beach!  Well, the girls and the little boys went to the beach while the big boys went to empty a few pint glasses!  Landon fell asleep about 20 mins from the beach (after having gotten up at 5 a.m. and no nap in between) and he was NOT happy to be woken up for a some sand and waves!

So to add insult to injury I decided to give him a taste of the California surf - you can tell...he was again, less than pleased!

He recovered and finally calmed down a little bit, but was still less than happy.  Poor buddy was just so tired.

 As soon as we got there, Zane told me there was no way he was going into the water!  I decided that was just not going to be an option!  Once I took him out slowly and showed him how to stand in the waves and {hopefully} not get knocked over - he decided to give it a whirl - turns out...he LOVED it!  He told me he really wanted to surf - I reminded him, he should probably learn how to swim first!

After some fun in the waves - Landon attempted to take a little nap and Zane covered himself in sand!

We were very hungry after our time at the beach - so met up with the big boys and headed to
50/50 Slaters for dinner!  This was Josh's one main request for our trip - that we go there for dinner one night!  We saw this place on the Food Network and it looked like a place to try...it did not disappoint!  This is a picture of Josh's burger - if you're not a red meat fan, you're probably grossing out - but mmmm, it was delicious!!

Sadly, due to our busy schedule and my sister's busy work schedule this was the only day we saw them - we had a great time though and can't wait to see them again...hopefully soon!

And...We're Off...