Day 3
After our exhausting day Sunday, we decided to take it easy. So on Monday, January 15th (Martin Luther King Jr Day), we didn't go to the Parks, but just hung loose instead.
First, we slept in a little (at least Tom and I did), then we got up and walked around the corner of the block to the overflow Disney parking lot. We decided to try the parking shuttle and see how that was. Well, it took a little less time than walking did, but we only had to walk five minutes and got to ride on the shuttle bus for the other ten. Which was nice! We decided to walk around Downtown Disney, since you don't need a ticket to do so.
The kids enjoyed the giant Disney store and we spent most of our time in there. (I love Tom's silly pose.)
We also walked down to the Lego store and saw the amazing Lego displays.
Tom and I are cheesy sometimes.
As we left Downtown Disney, Sophie got a little pouty. But that's to be expected when you push your six year old as hard as we did and she was still a bit exhausted.
It was another perfect weather day, maybe a bit cooler than Sunday. But it wasn't warm enough for some Cold Stone ice cream...
And swimming! This was one of the things the kids were exited about, so we had to make sure we spent a few hours at the pool. I mainly sat in the hot tub. It was nice to have the whole pool area to ourselves and the kids enjoyed playing "Marco Polo" with their dad.
After swimming we showered the kids and had some R&R in the hotel room.
Tom walked to a nearby pizza place and picked up some pizzas for lunch/dinner (I guess the ice cream was lunch that day). The bad news was, Jeff got one of his migraines that day, so he didn't feel like eating.
He ended up going to bed and slept for about three hours. The good news was, we weren't at the Parks when he got the migraine and we were able to let him sleep. If he had to get a migraine on the trip, Monday was the day to do it.
Tom and Lily walked about 20 minutes to the nearby Target to buy stuff for PB&J and a few other snacks while the rest of us rested.
We spent the evening watching movies on our various electronics, playing games, Sophie played with her toys, etc. I seriously didn't leave my bed the whole afternoon/evening, and loved it!
After Jeff woke up, he felt a lot better. We put the two little kids to bed early (we just put Sophie in Lily's bed for the time being) and played games with the older two kids before we all turned in and went to bed.
Day 4
Luckily, because it was off season, the weekdays at the Parks were shorter hours and less crowded. We still got up around 7:30 on Tuesday, January 16th in order to be to the Parks before they opened. We went to California Adventure this day. Again, the weather was fabulous!
Our first ride was Soarin' Around the World. One of our favorites!
A picture of these cute girls while we were waiting for the ride to open.
We ran into Dale...
And Chip. Although Chip was a bit of a prankster. If you look carefully at this picture, you'll see Chip's hand on Jeff's back.
He had put a sticker on there without Jeff even knowing! Ha, Ha!
Silly Chip! We enjoyed our one-on-one time with the cute critter.
We didn't get the Max Passes this day for everyone, but Tom did buy one just so we could get the photos, such as this one. Cedric's our "class clown" of the group.
We headed over by the pier next, because it's always less crowded first thing. Jeff never wants to ride with me on the rides, so when I sneaked onto the Zepher next to him, I had to get a picture of it. He was a pretty good sport about it too.
Jeff's favorite ride is the Goofy's Flight School. We went on it twice in a row, when the wait was less than five minutes. However, while Tom and Lily were running to pick up another Fast Pass (the old fashion way), Jeff and Cedric went on it again a third time! By that time, the wait was closer to 25 minutes, so Sophie and I were able to go on a couple rides while waiting.
One of our Fast Passes was for Radiator Springs Racers. This is one of those where the line without a fast pass is usually 60-90+ minute wait. With a fast pass, it was more like 10-15 minute wait. Even though the wait wasn't long, we took the time in line to eat our PB&J sandwiches for lunch.
Because we are a Disney Visa Card member, we got a special VIP visit with Pluto. The kids were a little mean to him (squeezing his nose and such), but they had some fun with him too. Here's some more of those great Disney pictures we got with the Max Pass.
Lily and Pluto flipping their ears/pigtails at each other.
Cedric scratching his belly.
And this is probably my favorite picture from the whole trip. Everyone is smiling!
We also had to stop by and see Spider-man, since Jeff had his Spider-man shirt on. Cedric was asking him about the upcoming "Avengers: Infinity Wars" movie and Spidy did such a good job to stay in character and say "can you predict the future? I don't know what you're talking about".
We love all the sights in California Adventure! Lily wanted to pretend we were movie stars in Hollywood.
We went on the New Guardians of the Galaxy ride that day. It is probably my favorite ride. The details in the building are amazing! We even spotted the old Yeti that used to be on the Matterhorn ride in "The Collectors" facility.
Sophie had done really well up to this point to go on all the big rides. When we took her 2 1/2 years ago, she cried on rides as mild as "Pirates". But I was still worried about her reaction to the free-falling elevator ride of Guardians. And just like her big sister at this age, she cried and hated it!
Luckily, that didn't last long, and we enjoyed some time at the Disney Animation Building.
First, we met Elsa and Anna. The kids loved talking to them.
We went into the Sorcerer's workshop for a bit.
Then we talked to Crush the turtle. There were only about six to eight kids in their with us, so luckily all three of our youngest kids got picked to talk to Crush. He made up fun names for them like "Surfboard Cedric" and "Seaweed Sophie". Jeff asked if he had ever met a red eared slider turtle, but he hadn't.
Next, we went into the Animation Academy where we learned how to draw Goofy. We love the Animation Academy!
Sophie didn't like how hers turned out. I think she did a wonderful job!
Cars Land is one of our favorites. The Cast Member taking our photos at the entrance was from Utah, so he seemed to enjoy us getting pictures with him.
We went on Radiator Springs Racers again. So Fun!
We hadn't made it over the pier to Toy Story Mania yet. The Pier is under construction because they are changing it from Paradise Pier to Pixar Pier. This meant our favorite ride, California Screamin' was closed. But luckily they kept Toy Story Mania open. We had a fast pass and had to wait a few more minutes before it was valid, so we decided to go on King Triton's Carousel. However, right before we got on the ride, Cedric and Jeff were splashing each other with the fountain water and somehow Cedric hurt Jeff. So Jeff just got in one of his rants. He refused to ride the carousel, so I asked him to take our picture. He probably took about 50 of them. Here's my favorite one because you can see Cedric, Tom, me and Sophie coming around.
Well, Jeff was still mad, so he refused to go on Toy Story Mania. Which then puts us in a bad mood because it was the only time we'd get to ride it that day. The line was really long too, so it was nice to have the Fast Pass.
So I got to sit alone, while Tom and Cedric were together and Lily and Sophie were together.
As we got off the ride, we found out the Cast Member that took our Fast Passes and saw the whole thing with stubborn Jeff unfold had given him a new fast pass so he could come back and go on it still, without waiting in line. Jeff told me he just threw it away, which made me mad. Luckily, we didn't have too many problems on this trip. But this was probably our biggest one.
Well, we then went to eat dinner and decided to eat at Flo's Cafe. Again, Jeff refused to eat anything there, so the rest of us got our food and Tom and Jeff wandered around the Park looking for something Jeff would eat. He didn't want anything. Tom ended up eating Sophie's small dish of mac & cheese for his dinner because he hadn't taken time to get himself any food. Jeff just went hungry.
However, Jeff admitted to Tom that he hadn't really thrown the fast pass away and that he still wanted to go on Toy Story Mania with Just him. So those two went back to ride Toy Story, while the other kids and I went and visited Mater.
We then found a spot to watch The World of Color show and ate a few snacks until Tom and Jeff met up with us again. It was sure nice to have an older kid, like Lily there to help me with the younger kids. It was a great show, and the kids got to lean up against the railing and could see real good. Tom, Lily and I stood back a bit and boy were my legs tired by the end of that show!
We took the shuttle back to the parking lot by our hotel (we were kicking ourselves we didn't do that Sunday), Jeff had a PB&J sandwich around 9:30 for his dinner and we went to bed.
It had been another fun and magical day. Even with a few hiccups.
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