Disneyland 2012 (Part 3)

DAY 7

I feel like I should say, "And on the 7th day they rested" or something like that.  However, we did anything *but* rest on our 7th day of vacation.  We headed back to Disneyland--excited to *not* be sharing the park with a gazillion yearly pass holders.  And, it was awesome!  The lines were sooooooooooo much shorter than they had been the last day we were there.  We were able to get so much more done.  First, we hit up Tower of Terror.  This was another ride that Connor swore he would never go on again.  He was pretty young the first time he went--only three-years-old--and we haven't been able to talk him into going since.  It's not the drop that scares him.  In fact, he loved the drop the first time we took him when he was younger.  It's the "scary story" you watch that freaks him out pretty good.  Well, we were finally (begrudgingly) able to get him on Tower of Terror not once, but twice.  Unfortunately, he's still not much of a fan.  Here's Mike, Poppy, Aiden & Connor on the ride.  They are in the front row on the left...

And here's the second wave of people to go--Aiden, Poppy, Nana, Connor & me.  Again on the front row...

As many of you know, Disneyland just opened up a whole new area in California Adventure called Cars Land.  It is basically a replica of Radiator Springs from the movie "Cars."  Well, unfortunately for us, Cars Land opened up just one week *after* our vacation.  While we were there, they were allowing "special people" to get a sneak peek of Cars Land.  Unfortunately, we weren't "special" enough to get in.  This was about as good a sneak peek as we could get.  Oh well.  Guess we'll have to wait for our next Disneyland vacation to experience it...

Next we were off to Grizzly River Run to get wet.  Nana took a page from my book & bought a poncho to wear in order to minimize the damage to hair & makeup...

Those that didn't have ponchos, like Poppy, Connor, Aiden & Mike got soaked.  I love this picture of Mike getting drenched...

After getting soaked to the bone, it seemed appropriate to go "under the sea" on the Little Mermaid ride...

And we had to stop & watch the Phineas & Ferb Beach Party Celebration.  We're big Phineas & Ferb fans in this house...

After that, Viv was in desperate need of a nap & Aiden was wanting to go back to the hotel to do some swimming.  Connor & Cohen, on the other hand, were begging to stay at the park.  So, we decided to split up.  Nana & Poppy took Aiden & Viv back to the hotel, and Mike & I stayed at the park with Connor & Cohen.  Both of the boys had really wanted to try out the Wilderness Explorer Camp that is supposed to resemble a camp that Russell from the movie "Up" would attend.  When we first got there, one of the camp leaders asked Connor & Cohen if they would like to participate in a rubber duckie race.  The kids got to pick a rubber duck & race it down the stream against five or six other kids...

Once all the ducks had been dropped into the water & were floating downstream, the kids would run down to a bridge that was the finish line & hope their duck crossed it first.  They had a great time & participated several times each...

After that, the kids got a Wilderness Explorer packet that included six challenges for each of them to pass off.  The challenges included a zipline, rock climbing, puzzle solving, etc.  Once they had passed off all six challenges, they were able to go to a "graduation ceremony" where they were dubbed official Wilderness Explorers & then got to have their picture taken with Russell.  They both loved it...

After that, we decided to head back over to Disneyland.  Right inside the main gate, we found Cruella DeVille...

I must explain this picture.  Cruella was hilarious!  She talked to the boys for quite a few minutes since there weren't many people waiting to have their picture taken with her.  The problem was that when Cohen told her his name, she thought he said Owen.  So, she kept calling him Owen & Cohen got totally confused.  I'm sure he was thinking, "Who the crap is this Owen person she keeps referring to?"  Anyway, she wanted the boys to pose like dogs in their picture with her.  You can tell Cohen doesn't know what to think.  This crazy lady kept calling him Owen & was telling him to act like a dog.  It was pretty funny.

Once Connor & "Owen" escaped from Cruella DeVille, we headed into Fantasyland to take a spin on the teacups...

The four of us got that tea cup spinning so fast!!  It was awesome!  None of us could walk in a straight line for a good 30 seconds after we got off...

Then we tried to pull the sword out of the stone...

But didn't have any luck.  After that, we got a call that Nana, Poppy, Aiden & Vivvie were on their way back.  Once they got there, we went on a few more Fantasyland rides.  While we were waiting in line for the Peter Pan ride, Connor decided to amuse himself with the camera.  Here's some of the funny little shots he got of everyone...

Later that night, we stayed for the fireworks.  Disney always does the best fireworks shows--they just keep going & going.  Glad my kids got their fair share of fireworks there.  There won't be many 4th of July fireworks shows going on here since the entire state of Utah is on fire right now...

After that, we took four sleepy kiddos back to the hotel & crashed.

DAY 8

On our 8th day, we headed back to Disneyland again to hit up the few rides we hadn't done yet.  Here's the boys waiting in line for Autotopia, in their Disney shirts...

Here's Nana & her driver, Connor...

And me with my driver, Aiden...

Let's just say that the boys are already following in their dad's (driving) footsteps.  CRAZY!!!

We did some other rides in Tomorrowland that we hadn't been on yet & hit up a few of the favorites for a second (or third or fourth) time.  Then we decided to take a swimming break back at the hotel.  On our way out of the park, we ran into Donald Duck...

As you can tell, Cohen was being a little grump.  I don't know what his deal was, but he kept saying that he hated Donald Duck because he was mean & that he didn't want his picture with him.  So, we finally let him go & took a picture with the two big boys who liked Donald Duck...

As soon as we got away from Donald, Cohen went back to being his happy self...

A few days after we got home, I asked Cohen who his favorite character was that he met & guess what his answer was?  Yep--Donald Duck.  Talk about a change of heart!

After some swimming & relaxing (which I obviously didn't take any pictures of), we headed back to California Adventure.  We still hadn't been on the Mickey Ferris Wheel & Cohen had been dying to go on it, so we went that direction.  Connor & Aiden wanted to go in one of the carts that swings as you go around, but Nana & Poppy didn't really want to go in a swinging cart, so they took the little kids in a stationary cart...

While Mike & I took Connor & Aiden in a swinging cart...

After that, we went on a few other rides & then found seats to watch World of Color.  This was the first time we had seen World of Color.  It was under construction the last time we were there.  I didn't know what to expect, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.  I thought it would just be a light & water show.  Okay fine, it was a light & water show.  There was lots of this...

But they also showed clips of different movies projected on the water too which was very cool...

At times, I found myself forgetting that I was looking at a wall of water.  It looked like you were just looking at a huge movie screen.  It was very cool.  If you haven't seen it yet, it is a must!

DAY 9

It was finally time to head home.  The plan was to drive to St. George on this day, but we still had one day left on our Disneyland passes (we bought a six day pass), so we decided to head into the park that morning before taking off to Utah.  We hit up a few favorites like Space Mountain, the Buzz Lightyear Ride, Star Tours, Big Thunder Railroad & Splash Mountain for one last hurrah...

Then it was time to bid Disneyland & SoCal goodbye.  We were so sad to go.  Yes, it was a long vacation, but I think we could have spent another couple of days there & been just fine with it.  Isn't that always how vacation goes?  Always just a few days too short.

So, we got in the car & started the long drive to St. George.  This drive should take about 7 hours if the traffic isn't too bad.  It was a Friday afternoon, so we knew we might hit a little bit of traffic since tons of LAers head to Vegas on the weekends, but we totally underestimated the amount of traffic that there would be.  It was literally a traffic jam from LA to Vegas--the whole way!  I'm not even kidding you!!!  I wish I had taken a picture to prove it.  It was very weird to be stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of death valley.  Cars were overheating all over the place.

We kept noticing that tons of the other cars had the letters EDC written all over them.  After a quick google search, we realized that EDC stood for Electric Daisy Carnival which is a huge concert/party/dress-up-like-a-hooker thing that happens at the speedway in Vegas once a year.  300,000 people attend it every year...and we were stuck on the road with every single one of them.  It was awful.  We crawled & crawled & crawled.  When we finally made it to Vegas, every single one of the cars (except us & my parents) got off at the Speedway exit...every single car except ours!!!  After that, it was open roads to St. George.  We finally pulled into our hotel at 10:30 at night.  What should have taken us seven hours, ended up taking us 10 hours.  We ordered some Brick Oven pizza & ate it in our hotel room, then hit the sack.  I've never been so ready to go to bed in all my life!

DAY 10

On our 10th & final day, we drove from St. George back home.  There aren't any pictures from this day because I think at this point, we were all just ready to get back to normal life.  Funny how the day before we were all sad at the thought of going home, but by today that's the only place we wanted to be.  I guess sitting in a traffic jam for 10 hours will do that to you.  There really is no place like home--that's for sure.

So, there you go!  There are some of the highlights of our Disneyland 2012 trip.  Since it's obviously becoming a tradition to do this once every three years (we went in 2006, 2009 & now in 2012), we'll apparently be back in 2015, if the fates allow.  Until then, so long Disneyland!  Thanks so much for all the great memories!