Oct.- Week 1- Disneyland, Day 3

Our last day was Thursday and it was the most crowded and the HOTTEST day at 100 degrees! We made sure to take advantage of all the photo ops we could too.  Unfortunately, Ben was pretty grouchy, even first thing in the morning.  If you can click on the picture below and zoom in on his face, it's pretty classic.  This was also the day McKenna wanted to wear the Cinderella dress we gave her.  

We were a little bummed the castle was too washed out in these pictures.  And Ben of course, has to make a silly face.

We headed to Adventureland and went to the Enchanted Tiki Room and had some super yummy Dole Whip!  The kids didn't love the Tiki Room as much as I did, but I feel like it was all part of getting the full Disneyland experience!  

We rode Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters 3 times today and the Astro Orbitor 2 more times.  I rode the Alice in Wonderland ride with McKenna and Dan rode the Mad Tea Party with the kids since that one makes me motion sick too. 

From the Buzz Ride.

We were pleased that even after McKenna's traumatic experience on Tower of Terror, she still was ok to go on the Haunted Mansion Holiday ride.  These are their spooky faces.  :)  We also rode the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad a total of 3 times this day and we got a fast pass for Space Mountain.  

We loved laughing on the Jungle Cruise.  Very punny commentary.  

Exploring Tarzan's Treehouse.  

We had to wait quite a while to meet Tinker Bell at Pixie Hollow, and it was pretty darn hot with little shade.  But she was totally cute and curtsied to McKenna and had her curtsy back.  

We also met the fairy Godmother-- on the day McKenna was dressed as Cinderella!  She told McKenna to pose that way.  

Dan took McKenna on the Matterhorn, which she later said was one of her favorites! 

We also rode the Monorail.  They only loaded 10 people per car that day because it was so hot and there's no AC in the cars.  See all our pink cheeks?  After this, we were very tempted to head back to the hotel and take a break during the hottest part of the day, but instead, we bought some frozen lemonades, rested in the shade for a bit, and pushed through. :) We also rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride but didn't get any pictures of that. 

We watched the Tangled story at the Royal Theater and the kids loved it.  :) 

Once it started to get dark, we bought dinner at a sandwich place (Jolly Holliday Bakery Cafe) and got great seats right on the curb for the Soundsation Parade.  Thankfully, we remembered the glow sticks this time!  This was the parade Ben slept through the first day, so he was seeing it all for the first time and was once again, in awe (apparently, Dan was as well)!  

After the parade, we told the kids we'd ride one more ride and then let them shop for one souvenir each.  McKenna chose an Anna barbie-ish doll.  Ben chose a blue lightsaber that makes noise!  We also bought an ornament for our Christmas tree.  We chose to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as our last ride at Disneyland!  Disneyland was just as magical and amazing as we could have ever hoped!  We have already prepped the kids to let them know we won't be returning to until they are 11 and 9 years old.  Let's hear it for Disneyland 2020!!  ;) 

We sure missed our sweet Anna!  The Hamblin and Koldewyn families took such good care of her!  Especially because she had a cold (runny nose and cough) the whole time!  They sent a picture each day which was so nice!  They even put Mickey ears on her to make her feel like she wasn't so left out.  ;)  She also fell in love with the Koldewyn's dog, which is hilarious considering how terrified the other two children are of dogs. :)

Friday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and checked out around 10am.  Then we drove to the LDS Temple in LA.  They have such a nice visitors center there.  

Then we made a quick stop at a beach in Santa Monica.  We would have liked to have stayed longer and maybe even played in the water a little, but we had a date to visit with an old roommate of mine.  

This is my freshman year roommate from BYU, Laura!  We also grew up together (our teenage years, anyway) in Virginia.  We talked, and talked, and talked and it was SO wonderful to feel like nothing has changed!  The kids played very well together and Dan was nice enough to play with the kids too while we talked some more. ;)  Our kids are pretty close in age to each other and will all be in the same school grade.  

After visiting Laura (too bad we missed seeing her husband, Joel), we headed to our sister-in-law's parents' house to sleep for the night.  On our way we wanted to eat at a local food joint, so we stopped in Pasadena (editor's note: not far from Rose Bowl Stadium, where the University of Utah beat UCLA the next day! Go Utes!) at a place called Oinkster!  It was really yummy!  The Bos family was so nice to take us in for the night!  Ben pretty much talked their ears off about Disneyland.  It was pretty darn cute!  

Our drive home was uneventful and seemed to go pretty quick.  We tried our best to listen to LDS General Conference, but our reception trying to stream it over our phones was not very consistent.  The kids played with more play dough, colored in their coloring books, watched 4 movies, ate snacks, and napped.  We picked up Anna from the Koldewyn's house and snuggled her LOTS!!  Such an amazing trip!  Can't wait to do it again when they're older and with more kids.  :)