We got to spend three days at Disneyland/California Adventure, and we had a wonderful time! It was a total night and day difference for Sofia: instead of screaming and crying, most of the time, she was fascinated by characters and loved the music. I was really glad that I had been to Universal Studios first so that I could truly appreciate how much better Disneyland was for our kids.
Buzz Lightyear was the first character we met, and I was really excited for Ryan to meet him, since he is one of Ryan's current favorites (the only thing better would have been meeting Emperor Zurg!). However, he was still intimidated after the Simpsons experience, so it took all the courage that he could summon to walk up to him, touch his leg briefly, and then run.
Sofia loved meeting characters. Here we are meeting Alice. She also loved the Queen of Hearts, grabbing her white gloves and trying to suck her fingers.
Here is Sofia as Minnie!
Sofia also loved Mickey . . . she kept grabbing his nose!
We met Pooh and all his friends. Ryan by this time was completely comfortable with the characters again and gave them all lots of hugs.
The second day, Nate's dad finally joined us, as did his grandparents. Grandpa Ted was in a wheelchair, and Ryan was absolutely insistent that he be the one to push, even though he could see over or around him. :D Ah, my little independent helper!
Some characters we met that morning included Pluto and Cruella de Vil. She was Nate's favorite because she sneered so well and asked if the autograph book was for "it," looking at Ryan. Speaking of the autograph book, I actually made it before we went to California. We had all the characters we met sign it, and then when we got home, I turned it into a mini scrapbook, complete with pictures of each of the characters and other favorite Disneyland picture. It was the first scrapbook I was able to do so quickly.
Captain Jack was at the Pirate's Lair on Tom Sawyer's Island. He was amazing; he had all the mannerisms from the movie, and he was quick on his feet with very clever responses to everything that people said.
At California Adventure, they have King Triton's Carousel. They often pick a girl or boy to be the prince or princess for the ride. Ryan was chosen once to be "Prince Ryan" (even though he kept calling himself "princess"), so he got to say it was time to start the ride and wear a gold paper crown.
We also watched the Pixar Play Parade, which had floats with characters from every Pixar movie. We all enjoyed it, but Ryan was in seventh heaven because those are his favorite movies. Plus he loved that the characters would spray water at the crowds and bubbles blew over us. It was great fun.
Because Nate has a convention in LA at the end of July and we could put our admission tickets toward an annual pass that would cost less than a day's admission, we now have annual passes so that I can take the kids while Nate's at his convention.
Ryan's already started planning our next trip: flying boats of Peter Pan, the Main Street Electrical Parade (so he can see Pete's Dragon, one of his other favorites), Dumbo, the rockets, Buzz, Pirates of the Carribean, Tarzan's Treehouse, the train with the dinosaurs, Autopia, the Playhouse Disney puppet show (he loved dancing with Mickey, Pooh, Handy Manny, and the Little Einsteins), the Monsters Inc. ride.
The elevators also had pictures from the movie, so we thought we'd take a couple more. I particularly like the picture where Ryan put CG on his shoulders to be like the Man in the Yellow Hat.
It was Ryan's idea to meet the Simpsons (they were characters--and who doesn't want to meet a character?). However, they nearly did him in for characters for the rest of the trip. Homer pretended to throttle a guy in the family taking pictures in front of us, which intimidated Ryan. Bart completely did him in by blowing a raspberry at him as we passed. I didn't realize until I looked at the picture later that Bart was trying to pat Ryan on the back to make him feel better; I just knew that Ryan was crying and totally upset. (Of course, Marge smoothed everything over, at least temporarily, by giving him a Simpsons poster.)
Ryan was really scared to meet CG after the above event, but eventually he kissed his cheek. And I was so excited that Ryan was able to meet one of his "friends."
Our favorite place was the ball room. It was filled with foam balls that you could do all sorts of things with. There were air guns that you could use to try and shoot balls through targets (or at people!), vacuums that would suck balls through hoses and deposit them all over the place (including in buckets that people were running around with).
Our favorite project in the ball room was filling a giant hopper that was near the ceiling and that would dump all over when it got full enough. We scrambled all over the room filling up buckets and bringing them back to the tube that was sucking up the balls. Mom broke a sweat, and Ryan kept squealing with excitement. When the balls tipped out, we were well showered (and the picture that Mom got seemed well worth all the effort).
I'm looking forward to going back there when the kids are older. Of course, by that time, it might seem even louder to me!
We love getting the deluxe tickets, which include unlimited trips on the Skyfari (see pics of us below) and the buses. Especially when it's hot, there is nothing better than climbing on the bus and just riding around for a while. Sometimes the kids even take a nap for a little while, but not this year.
After nearly dehydrating ourselves at Sea World the day before, we smartened up and bought a souvenir cup that could be refilled as many times as necessary (we loved the lemonade and ice water). All of us felt much better health-wise and we loved seeing the animals from the shady bus.
Ryan befriended this sweet orangutan. She is an older resident of the zoo and loves kids. Ryan loved getting close to the glass and saying hello.
After the zoo, we picked Matt up from the airport because he was overnighting in San Diego. We bought some BBQ and enjoyed it on the roof of Linda's apartment (like we did last year).
All in all, another fine day in paradise!
That said, I had a blast. I loved the Arctic exhibit. It had polar bears, walruses, and belugas. Nate was particularly proud of this pic of a polar bear scratching its back.
Here's a rescued walrus (like the San Diego Zoo, Sea World rescues and rehabilitates animals from all over the world).
Ryan was fascinated with this tortoise: it was a lot bigger than the one at my aunt and uncle's house.
We enjoyed watching them feeding the penguins; these are temperate penguins that live in warmer areas (but they didn't care much for the extreme heat either). It was so interesting because the trainer knew each individual penguin and they would shake their heads when they had had enough fish (they don't eat when they're full).
We loved all of the animal shows and interactions with animals. Unfortunately, our camera battery ran out, so I don't have pictures of the dolphin or sea lion and otter shows. However, I am very glad I got this on film (even if it didn't turn out very well). Mom and I were both able to pet a dolphin!! We were both really excited. It felt like soft wet rubber. My excitement was tempered a little by the fact that neither Ryan nor Nate were able to touch one. But I was still so happy to do something that I'd always wanted to do.
Ryan was so excited to see his Grandma:
Sofia was having a fabulous time feeling the sand, but of course, with her fingers constantly in her mouth, she ended up eating a lot of it too. The poor thing had sandpaper in her diaper the next day, but I thought this picture was priceless!
