Disneyland--Day One

We just HAD to go to Disneyland one more time before we move to North Carolina. We scored some awesome 3-day park hopper passes at a deep discount. This was day one.

The boys eagerly anticipated the Indian Jones ride. It is a pretty amazing ride. It is a pretty good merging of four-wheelin' fun with the movie scenery and special effects.

The kids reallly wanted to go to Tom Sawyer Island . . . now known as pirate island. Joseph wanted a picture next to the Mark Twain Riverboat. He is currently reading Tom Sawyer and plays the role of Ben in the 6th Grade musical version of Tom Sawyer.

Pirate Island now has a lot of new pirate additions, like this bone cage from the Pirates of the Carribean movie (I think #3).

We found the buried treasure!

The girls and I LOVE the Winnie the Pooh ride.

After a long day, the kids relax on the Mark Twain Riverboat.

Aleya's favorite ride was Snow White. Particularly because outside the ride, if you look up above it, the Evil Queen opens the window and peeks out. Aleya couldn't take her eyes off the window, particularly when we were waiting in line for the Peter Pan ride, across the way.

Aleya and I picked the slow teacup, while Christian and the kids spun themselves silly. (They're right behind Aleya, in the blue and white teacup)

Aleya rode the Matterhorn with Dad. We were waiting until mid-March to come to Disneyland because this ride had been closed for repairs since early February.

Amara put on her brave face, but she was quite nervous to ride this. Afterwards, she was glad she did.

Our favorite family ride is definitely the Buzz Lightyear ride. You score points by hitting targets with your lazer guns. This time the ride stalled, and Christian scored an astronomical amount of points. I thought for sure I had beat him, but no. He blew us all away. I think he scored around 354,000. I scored around 197,000.

The boys scored 109,000 and 137,000. Pretty awesome!

Disneyland--Day Two

I'll bet some of you may wonder, "What do you do the 2nd day at Disneyland?" Well, besides riding the few rides that you may have missed, you wait in all the long lines for the photo opportunities with all the Disney characters. There were a LOT of these lines.

Christian waited in this Tinker Bell line for around an hour.

There was no wait for the jail, but sadly there was no lock strong enough to keep them all day.

Luckily, we just bumped into Goofy.

The Minnie Mouse line was about 30 minutes.

We snuck in a quick ride in between the photo-op lines.

This is Chip 'n Dale's house. The kids ask, "Who is Chip and Dale?" This generation is not as familiar with these furry creatures.

The Mickey line took around 40 minutes. Luckily there were plenty of things to entertain the kids along the way (you enter the line through Mickey's house).

Pluto showed up in the area we were eating lunch, so we hurried over for only a 5 minute wait.

We decided to ride the Monorail . . . a ride we rarely ride. In fact, I think this was the first time the kids rode it here in California. Lucky us, we got to ride in the front with the driver! Christian couldn't fit (Max=5), so we enjoyed it without him.

In Tommorwland at Innoventions, we watched Disney present the ASIMO robot to us. It walks, runs, walks up stairs, talks, performs tasks . . . in short AMAZING. Will we have one of these in our homes in the future? Certainly the lesser-abled folks could greatly benefit from the services of ASIMO.


I waited in the Princess line for around 45 minutes. It was well worth it to get the photos with Mulan, Cinderella, and Princess Aurora. The girls were thrilled.


We finished off the day with a romp through Sleeping Beauty's castle. It was a newer addition that we weren't aware even existed. It recounts the story in windows along a corridor as you make your way through the castle.

Disney's California Adventure--Day Three

While Christian, Amara, and the boys were on Tower of Terror, Aleya and I went to the Playhouse Disney show.

Aleya LOVED seeing all characters from the Mickey Mouse playhouse.

She got up and danced and clapped and had the best time!

The Muppets 3-D show is hilarious each time we see it. Joseph was actually pretty sick this day, probably with the flu. Christian gave him a priesthood blessing and he got progressively better throughout the day, though he was not his usual self.

This was Aleya's first time to see the Aladdin musical at Disney. We even scored seats up near the front. We were on the 4th row!

Orrin and I loved California screamin'!

I finally convinced Amara to ride California Screamin' with me. There we are in the front!

The girls loved the High School Musical 3 show.

Look, it's Mater and Lightning McQueen from Pixar's CARS movie!

The kids couldn't wait to get over to Fort Wilderness. They have a lot of fun activities for the kids to swing, climb, slide, and play on. At this point, I lost my walkie talkie and I searched and searched and couldn't find it.

Meanwhile, the kids romped and played.

I tried one last time to page the other walkie, using Christian's, and I heard the sound coming from a bush nearby. HOLEY COW! I guess some random kid picked it up and ended up dropping it in this bush, and I just happened to be standing next to the bush to find it. Of course, I also prayed for help, so it was definitely an answer to my prayers.

When California Adventure closed early, we quickly went over to Disneyland to ride Space Mountain one last time. Then we watched the spectacular firework show complete with a live Tinkerbell flying from the Matterhorn down and around the castle. It was pretty awesome and worth the wait. Christian found great seats for us near the castle as we got dinner for the kids. They even projected images and colors on the castle to go along with the music. Goodbye Disneyland . . . hello Disneyworld. We'll be going there after we save a couple thousand dollars.

A Sledding SUCCESS!

After a beautiful drive up the mountain to Big Bear, we finally found our snow! We finally made it to some snow at Big Bear Lake in California. We had heard that the best sledding was behind the Marine Corps Cabins at Big Bear. They were right. There was still snow (not man-made) and the sledding was free. It was around $20 a person/per hour, elsewhere on man-made snow runs.

We brought our bright blow-up sleds we had bought a few months ago to use (when all the snow was melted in Julien). We just came up for the day (it's about 2 1/2 hours away), since I was not able to get a cabin reserved.

The downside was that Aleya was sick. We almost scrapped this trip, too. But I thought if we could just keep her in the car and away from the cold, she would be fine. She would have none of that and insisted on sledding, too. So, we bundled her up well.

Joseph and Orrin were maniacs and tried many long and speedy slopes. It is always a terrifying thrill when your sled turns around backwards and you can't see where you are going.

Next they had snowball fights. A nice lady used her trusty snowball maker to form perfectly round snowballs for the kids to use.

Aleya used the sled to nap on. (She was not feeling well, at all, but she still had a turn to sled every so often)

The boys tried this particularly steep slope, but kept crashing into rock piles. Joseph pretty much gave up after this because he was too cold and frustrated. Our kids are a little wimpy when it comes to cold. Also, our sleds were losing air because they got punctured on the rocks.

Amara had the most fun of all the kids and never crashed at all.

I even tried a few of the runs. It is thrilling, but not as fun as I remembered when I was a kid. I guess it's the "I don't want to get injured" factor.