California Adventure Park

Apparently every year Disney runs a promotion for southern California residents that gets you into 2 parks for the price of one. Lucky for us they were running that promotion when we planned to go anyway, so Wednesday we headed over to California Adventure Park. We had to be there first thing in the morning, because we had reservations to eat breakfast with the princesses at Ariel's Grotto. Thankfully this park was a little more laid back than Disneyland, I'm not sure the kids could've handled it otherwise -since we'd been at Disney so long the day before.

This is a picture outside the gate that I had actually taken the night before as we were leaving Disneyland.

Ariel's Grotto for breakfast with the princesses

Chris and the kids at breakfast. They gave us a selection of fresh fruit, meat, cheeses, danish, bagels and breads. Then they brought out the scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and potatos. It was quite good actually.

Clara and Ariel

Clara and Jonathan with Ariel

Clara with Sleeping Beauty

Clara and Snow White

Snow White trying to get a high five from Jonathan

Clara showed each princess her 'princess wave' and Jonathan imitated Cinderella with his hand on his chin

Getting Cinderella's autograph

Clara with Cinderella

Showing Belle the 'princess wave'

Big hugs for Belle. Jonathan tried to run over to Belle when she was visiting at the table before ours -- he was not excited when we told him to wait his turn. I guess we know who his favorite princess is :)

After breakfast

Yep, we have matching Mickey shirts!!! When Clara outgrows that one, I have another one for her and Jonathan can have that shirt -- then we'll ALL match!

We caught the Playhouse Disney show. It was done with puppets that were about 3ft. high. It was really cute.

They encouraged the kids to join in. Clara had a great time.

Daisy, Goofy, Mickey, Donald

Handy Manny was there too

And so were the tools (Pat, Dusty, Rusty, Turner, Squeeze, Felipe, and Stretch)

Even the Little Einsteins

And 'My Friends Tigger and Pooh'

'When you have a problem think...All you have to do is think, think, think..."

We heard the Aladdin show was really good - and it was. Like a little broadway show for kids. There were many jokes in it for the adults too, like the movies.

Aladdin and Jasmine getting married

High fives for Goofy...

...and hugs too

Pluto and Clara

Ready for the Muppets 3-D show

Clara 'jumping through the wall' outside the Muppets show

Disneyland Parade

We managed to push the kids long enough to see the parade down Main Street at the end of the day. Here are some pics we took.

Flora, Fauna, Merriweather from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella's Fairy Godmother (anyone know who the purple winged fairy is?)

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell (on the float)

Belle and the Beast

Mrs. Potts and Chip

Pinocchio

Gepetto with puppets

Jiminey Cricket

Ariel and Sebastian

Ursula

Queen of Hearts

Cards jumping on trampoline at the tea party

Alice and the Mad Hatter

Lion King

Seven Dwarfs

Dale

Disneyland

After visiting with the Tebbes, we headed to Anaheim, CA to meet up with Grandma Ginia and Grandpa Vic to go to Disneyland. We almost weren't able to find a time when they could meet up with us, so we sure are glad it worked out. This was the kids' first time to Disney and only my second, so we were all VERY excited. Clara couldn't wait to meet all the 'real' princesses. The rest of us couldn't wait to see her face when she did. Needless to say, no one came away disappointed.

Vic told us that he had turned $40 into $300 at a casino on their way up from Phoenix, AZ. So dinner was on him, and lucky for us The Cheesecake Factory was right across the street from our hotel.

We headed to Disneyland the next morning and our first stop was meeting all the princesses at the Fantasy Faire.

First, we met Pocohantas

Clara with Belle

Jonathan waves 'Hello' to Sleeping Beauty

Jasmine told Clara that all the princesses were talking about how handsome her baby brother was.

Jonathan loved riding the Choo Choo around Disneyland

Chris and Jonathan drove the car behind Clara and I

Clara and Grandma Ginia on the Storyland ride

Jonathan with Mommy and Daddy on the Storyland ride

Jonathan and Mommy in the green Dumbo and Grandma Ginia and Grandpa Vic behind us in the orange Dumbo (Chris and Clara were in the one in front of us taking our pic)

Grandpa Vic has a bum knee and so he rented a scooter so that he'd be able to share this special day with us, otherwise, he never would've been able to do all that walking.

Grandpa Vic posed with Clara after getting her face painted with a purple dolphin

This is the first carousel that Clara has gone on alone, with no one holding her. She was so proud of her bravery that at the end of the day this was her favorite thing (not meeting all the princesses).

Grandpa Vic got the kids 'ears' with their names embroidered on the back.

Clara wanted to ride the teacups with Grandma and Grandpa

Chris, Jonathan and I rode along too.

I just thought this was a really cute picture. We were waiting to get on the Casey Jr. train ride

Jonathan was enamored by Mickey and Minnie

Clara and Minnie Mouse

Posing with Mickey. This was really close to the end of the day and Jonathan was upset that I had taken away his autograph book to give to Mickey.

For those of you with young kids, you may be familiar with the cartoon Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that comes on the Disney Channel. Clara is showing Goofy the 'hot dog' dance that he does during the opening and closing credits.

All of us on the Jungle Cruise

Worn out and on our way out of Disneyland. Clara had stolen Chris' shirt during the parade because it had gotten pretty chilly.

The hotel we stayed in was a 2 room suite with bunk beds in one room for the kids and a king bed in the other room for Chris and I. The bunk beds were a hit with the kids. No, we didn't let Jonathan sleep up there. He was safely tucked away each night in the pack 'n play, but whenever he got the chance he headed straight up that ladder.

The Tebbes

We spent the first two days of our vacation in Mission Viejo, CA, which is about 30 min south of Anaheim. Our friends, the Tebbes, were visiting family there and we went down to meet them on our way to Disney. Chris and David went through Officer Candidate School (OCS) together and we were lucky enough to be stationed with them in both Pensacola, FL and Virginia. Their little girl Olivia was one of Clara's very first friends and they still get so excited to see each other. We had a great visit with them.

David, Andrea and Olivia

Clara and Olivia at the Park

Lunch at Togo's

Funny Faces

Friends Forever, I hope

Vacation

We're back from our trip to Disneyland. We returned on Thursday and I think we've all finally recovered. The kids did great. We kept them at Disneyland from open to close on Tuesday and then California Adventure Park from open to close on Wednesday, and we had no major meltdowns. They were certainly worn out, as were Chris and I, but we all had so much fun it was worth it. I have lots of pics to post, it's hard figuring out which ones to use, so I'll start with these 2. This is Pyramid Lake. It's off of I-5, about 2 hours south of here. I've wanted to stop and take pics of it everytime I go through there because it's so beautiful. There's actually a pyramid shape cut out of the side of that big mountain in the first pic, but I was too far away to get a good shot of it.