doin' disney-last Friday

On this second day at the park, we bounced back and forth between California Adventure (which really is made for bigger kids) and Disneyland. Disney is open earlier and later than CA Adventure, so we ping-ponged a LOT. And believe me, by about noon, our feet were feeling it!

For the first time in all my years of going to Disneyland, we made good use of the lockers by stowing away coats and jeans for the kids for later. Although the weather was perfect during the day (80 degrees all three days!) it got down into the 60s at night, which is a bit too cool for us Arizona wimps.

Sadly, Ethan was literally millimeters too small for the Grizzly River Run, so Dan and the boys went without him. He was so forlorn and depressed sitting up on the bridge as we taped the boys coming down the river. We'd brought large trash bags from the hotel to use as ponchos, which worked pretty well. The boys came off the ride completely dry-Dan unfortunately hit a waterfall just right and water poured down inside his 'poncho', but he was ok with that. Better him than the kids.

Now I love roller coasters, but I hate hate hate that drop your stomach feeling. That feeling of weightlessnses when you fall. Hate that! So this picture of me cowering into the shoulder of my beloved husband is not just a show for the camera. I was buried like this the entire ride. I can not stand the Hollywood Tower of Terror. Hate it!

All the little 3-D/4-D shows at CA Adventure are so fun! The Bugs Life encounter and Muppet show-all good stuff.

It was hilarious sitting behind the boys during the train ride, watching their little arms stay up in the air, their bodies sliding from side to side as they careened around corners. Try not to get sick as you watch these videos.

We got lucky enough to be the first in line at the monorail when it was time to board, so we got to sit in the front engine compartment. That was a new experience!

We did plenty more throughout the day, including watching one parade, eating lunch at Pizza Oom Mow Mow (?), eating dinner at this awesome little Jazz place in Downtown Disney (really cool New Orleans-esque square with live music and dancing and super yummy food), and trying the 3-D Toy Story arcade type ride over in California Adventure <---- that was SO COOL! ---> but by about 7, Ethan was pretty much done. I really wanted to stay til midnight, but for about two hours, this is how we carted him around.

And that got difficult.

Then Cameron started to fade, so by around 10, I knew we were about done.

We had one more set of Fast Passes to the Thunder Mountain railroad though, so we hit that one up one more time. Now I'm sure I've experienced this ride in the dark before, but I honestly can't remember it. It is a totally different ride at night. I absolutely loved it! While in line for that, Cameron totally fell asleep and pretty much went through the entire ride laying down on Sean's shoulder. I guess that's our cue to call it a night.

This ended up being such a great vacation. Aside from the 2 minutes when the boys first learned where we were going (who gets disappointed about a surprise Disneyland trip, I ask you?) and the 20 minutes when Cameron got lost (don't worry, I had our names and cell phone numbers on papers in each boy's pocket), everything went really smoothly. No one got sunburned (aside from a 2 inch part on top of my head-I always forget to put sunscreen on my scalp) and we came in way under budget, so. . . yay! Great times, great pictures, and I hope something that they'll remember for a long time.

Oh and damage? I gained 8 pounds. No joke. 8 POUNDS. (I already lost 4 of that, but still. . .) How is it possible for someone to gain 8 pounds in 4 days? It's not like I went nuts! (well. . . apart from my one or two or ten donuts every morning, and the large variety of fried foods at my disposal each meal) but oh well. Such is vacation, right?