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!