CA '12: Grand Californian Fun

We debated quite a bit about where we were going to stay for our Disney vacation this year.  We finally settled on staying at the Disneyland Resort in one of the Disney hotels, and decided that we wanted to try out the Grand Californian.  It did not disappoint.  We had an excellent stay there, the staff was very helpful, the room comfortable, and it was nice having an entrance right into California Adventure.

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures of the hotel itself.  It's a lot more difficult to do things like that when you have a baby and a toddler!  The lobby was huge and had a large sitting area full of comfortable arm chairs and couches.  We spent a significant amount of time there each day.  The kids really liked choosing where they were going to sit.  The only picture that I have to share from that is a picture of my cute baby girl sitting on one of the chairs.  (Even she liked it!)

The room was perfect for us.  It had a queen sized bed for Andy and I, and a bunk bed with a trundle pull out for the kids.  (We had a reclined chair for Macie to sleep in, since she still struggled with sleeping flat due to her reflux.)

The boys had a lot of fun playing on those bunk beds.  Ephram thought it was funny to get onto the bottom bunk by climbing through the ladder.  Then he realized he could climb the ladder itself.  They spent hours going up and down, playing on the various beds and turning the wall mounted lights on and off.  In fact, this was so much fun for them that we only actually turned on the TV once in four days.

We had a balcony with a little table and chairs too.  It looked out on Downtown Disney.  We were right in the middle of the strip and it was a great people watching spot, day and night.

Even Macie loved the room.  She was all smiles and giggles almost all of the time that we were in it.

We will definitely stay in the Grand Californian again!

CA '12: Disney Day 3

I had mixed feelings as I woke up on October 11th, our last planned day at Disneyland.  I was tired, felt a little dehydrated, my feet were swollen and I had a slight twinge of a headache.  But I was also excited, for me and for my kids', to have another day of fun.  We had planned to enter the park an hour before it opened, but the kids were doing this:

They were absolutely wiped out from the days we'd already spent there.  It took us about an extra hour to convince all of them to wake up and get dressed.  And I decided that was okay, so we got into the park about a half an hour before it opened to the public.  And that was enough time for us to explore the rides in TomorrowLand.  Star Tours has been one of my favorites since it first opened.

We met with the cousins in TomorrowLand, and all of the boys that met the height requirement went on the Matterhorn.  Ephram, Macie and I did some shopping and some eating at TomorrowLand Terrace.  He sure is a cute kid.

Eventually we were joined by everyone else.  Charlie was thirsty.  He is also very cute.  What a ham.

We spent time running from one ride to the next, and then hopped over to California Adventure around lunch time.  We were all excited to go back to Radiator Springs.  Ephram was in heaven.

The boys waited to ride Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, and I wandered the strip to see what else they might want to do when they were done.  Macie was sleeping so peacefully, and although it was very crowded, it was a nice calm moment for me.  But nothing was as fun as watching these three boys spin around right in front of me.  They started out with skeptical faces, and all three had broad smiles about halfway through.

Then we stopped at the Petting Zoo to take some pictures with Mater.

And we ran into Red too.  It was hard for Andy to pry Ephram's hands off of Red.

Later we wandered back over to the Cozy Cone, which we'd visited on Day 1.  Ephram was so excited to see Mater again that he actually tried to hop the fence.  And I think he could have done it if he had been given a couple more minutes!

But once it was our turn with Mater, he was pretty shy!

We also saw Goofy and got some treats.  My favorite part of that afternoon was the production of Aladdin that we stopped to see.  I expected a fun little production, but it was a full on musical.  Very impressive.  I feel like I took my kids to their very first show... too bad both Ephram and Macie slept through the entire thing.  And we were in the front row with fog covering us, camels reaching down to talk to us and a giant snake right in front of us.  But those two were quite tired!

Eventually we went back to Disneyland.  We rode the carousel again.  And again.  And again.  Ephram really likes the carousel, still.

While Andy took the boys on Peter Pan, I took Macie on a walk and got her her first ears.  She is such a cute little girl.

My favorite part with the boys that evening was as we waited in the short line for Small World.  We were there right at 5pm, and when the clock stroke and came to life, they were mesmerized.  It was magic for both of them.  Then I told Ephram that we were about to go inside the clock, and now he thinks that clocks have water and lots of different kinds of people that sing inside of them.  And I'm okay with that.

We always let our kids buy one souvenir from the park.  Charlie chose his Indiana Jones map.  Ephram chose a new Donald Duck.  And I chose a Minnie Mouse for Macie.  But I was surprised when we got back to my parents' house that night and realized that Minnie was almost as big as my baby!  She loved her new toy.

We had a great time at Disneyland, and I hope to be back in 2013!

CA '12: Disney Halloween Carnival

We decided to go to Big Thunder Ranch to check out Disneyland's Halloween Carnival.  I am so glad that we did this.  It ended up being a huge hit, and possibly Ephram's favorite part of the whole trip.

Why did Ephram love it?  Because ALL of the characters were there, just roaming around.  He got up close with Goofy, who copied Ephram's dance moves, Mickey, Donald and both Chip and Dale.

He thought that it was the best thing ever when Goofy started doing everything he did.  It was surreal for me, because it reminded me of our favorite XBox Kinect game, Disneyland Adventures.

The cutest part was this Mickey parade.  Ephram had been in line to say hi to Mickey, and just before it was his turn, Mickey turned around and left.  Ephram turned to me, buried his head in my leg and started crying.  He absolutely loves Mickey.  Then I noticed that the reason he left was that it was time to lead a parade for all of the kids that had created Halloween masks.  So I lead Ephram over to the parade.  He was so excited that he jumped right in front and grabbed on to Mickey's hand.  He held Mickey's hand for the rest of the parade and would not let go.  In the end, Mickey had to do some silly pantomiming to convince Ephram that it was time to move on.  What mattered most to me was that my boy was no longer heartbroken about not getting his turn with Mickey.

Meanwhile, Charlie was off working on said Halloween mask with his cousin Dustin.  Charlie loved the Halloween carnival too.  His favorite part about it was the freedom that he had to roam and try different things.  The carnival was in a pretty contained area, so we gave him a wider berth than elsewhere in the park.

While all that was happening, Ephram continued his discovery of characters.  

Next was Donald, who made a big deal of leading Ephram around and doing a little dance with him.

Then we saw either Chip or Dale.  I'm not sure which one.  But in the end it didn't matter, because we met the other one about ten minutes after.  Ephram had fun playing peek-a-boo with the latter chipmunk.

All in all the carnival was a huge success with both of my boys.  And, as a bonus, it also gave Macie a little more seclusion - which allowed her to enjoy a nice, long nap.  I will definitely do this carnival again!

CA '12: Disney Day 2

On our second day in the parks, we decided to start off in Disneyland.  We had a pass to enter Toon Town an hour before it opened to the rest of the park... and since seeing Mickey has always been among the best aspects of our visits, we were going to take advantage of that time!

The kids were excited, but still sleepy.  Charlie woke right up once he saw the pumpkins lining the entry gate.

We walked straight to the back of the park and went through the gate to Toon Town.  Chip (or Dale) met us on the pathway into town.  Ephram started to wake up.

We attended a Town Hall meeting and were all declared Citizens for the Day, (and we have the buttons to prove it.)  Then it was off to Mickey's house, followed by Minnie's house.

When we were done with our Toon Town fun, we headed over to TomorrowLand to meet up with the cousins.  Most of the cousins went straight for Autopia, another consistent favorite.  I stayed with Macie, who needed to take a bit of a break.  Then we decided to go into the House of Innovention.  We ended up spending a lot of time there.  The kids had a lot of fun with a microscope/magnifying glass exhibit... and then they found the Kinect display.

After awhile we left, stopped at various rides on the way, and eventually ended up at Big Thunder Ranch for a Halloween carnival.  I have so many pictures from it that there will be a separate post to chronicle those happenings.  Macie was a happy girl that day, just kicking back in her stroller.

We hopped back and forth from California Adventure, to the hotel and back to Disneyland.  We did Pirates of the Caribbean and then it was time to find seats for the parade.  Andy took Charlie to go buy his coveted Indiana Jones map while I saved the seats with sleeping children.

He was really proud of that map.

Did I mention it was Andy's birthday?  This is about as thrilled-looking as he gets.

I think he had a good 2nd Annual Disneyland Birthday.

While we waited the lights for the castle came on.

The parade was the same that we saw last year.  This actually made Ephram more excited, because we'd looked at pictures at home.  Once again, Ephram woke up just in time for the parade and was a little subdued during it.  Charlie was all excitement.  Macie was just mesmerized.  Me too.  I love a Disney parade.

Afterward we headed over to FantasyLand, where my boys tried to join forces to extract Excalibur from the rock.  Cousin Quinlan even tried to help.  Alas, it did not budge.  A ride on the Carousel was in order.

Eventually it was time to leave the park.  We headed to Downtown Disney to look for a dessert place to celebrate Andy's birthday.  Unfortunately, most of them were bogged down with crazy-long wait times.  No problem for Andy though... he was very happy stopping at a Wetzel Pretzel to enjoy their cinnamon pretzel bits.  Yum.

We wrapped Day 2, a successfully fun experience, and prepared to enter the park for our third and final day.