Thursday: Day 5

Thursday morning, everyone slept in a bit later than usual. We'd been happily wearing ourselves out! However, our three day Park Hopper tickets allowed us to go to one "Magic Morning" which is when select Fantasyland and Tomorrowland attractions open an hour before the rest of the park.

We got ourselves ready. Miss Autumn had a bit of a sunburn from her day at the beach so I covered her legs with the latest pair of BabyLegs I'd made:


We stopped for a quick bite at Mickey Donald's again which isn't really all that quick because so many people go there. So the boys started on some PopTarts while we waited for Jason to come with the food:


Then we headed over for our Magic Morning. Luckily we'd gotten popular Nemo out of the way the night before with our fancy pass. That way we were able to knock a few more attractions off our list during that "magic" hour. We headed over to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride which was Little Jason's favorite ride so our boys like that part of it all:



I love his little winky expression there. He's been doing that face a lot lately.



Dalton "drove" me on the Wild Ride:


Trying to pull out the Sword in the Stone:


Heading to Pinocchio:


A spin on the carousel...which Autumn slept through:


Posing in the giant tea cup outside the actual ride:


Jason was in line to go on with us at first but the boys were wanting to spin like crazy people so Jason wasn't so much game for that...and it was probably best Autumn sit it out too. So just the boys and I went on:


Autumn was still out for our float through "it's a small world" which was a bummer because we were thinking she'd love that one. Instead I took a picture of my husband who seemed to think we were on Pirates of the Carribean based on his expression there:


We took a picture of a few of our favorites we'd remembered from last year:




You know how that song gets stuck in your head...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Then we did some browsing in a souvenir shop:

Now she wakes up!

We had some things we wanted to do on the other side of the park now that it was opening up so we hopped on the train:


I asked Jason to take a picture of me and Autumn before she had some milk. When I saw it later I was like, "Why didn't you take another one?" Apparently he hadn't noticed the hand:


We made it over to Jungle Cruise where some foreign camera dork in front of me kept chatting me up about our Nikons. :) I probably shouldn't have taken so many pictures in line:




Lucky for Jason that dude was the last on his boat and we were the first on ours. J got to keep me! Hee hee!


The boys enjoyed the cruise, even if they didn't get the corny jokes that I love so much about the ride.




We did some more things, like I had Jason go on Indiana Jones. Easton wasn't tall enough for that by a long shot and I'd done it with Lauren in 2003 so I knew it was cool. He did that and the kids and I climbed through Tarzan's Treehouse:

There is a ton of stairs in Tarzan's Treehouse so with Autumn on my front and the heavy backpack on my back, by the time we reached the ground at the end my thighs were burning. Sad, but true.

We found some lunch and Easton and I did a re-run on Splash Mountain. We got to sit side by side in the back of the log this time:

He would like for me to pretend I didn't know what was coming. He's 5. I don't know why "pretend you're scared" is still fun. But I obliged my boy.

Meanwhile, Jason, Dalton, and Autumn did a re-run on Winnie the Pooh. E and I browsed a candy shop there in Critter Country while we waited for Jason to realize where the Splash Mountain exit was to meet up with us. I thought these were the cutest candy apples I'd ever seen:

But I did not buy one. Nor the chocolate/caramel/marshmallow "Tigger Tails" I'd heard about. Now I'm sad. Because I'm home and who knows when we'll be going back exactly and I'll have to wait that long. :( We did get a churro, however. At least I had that.

At that point I think we left Disneyland to "hop" to California Adventure to do a few of the shows we'd missed the day before. I impressed myself by nursing Autumn as we walked. When we got inside the park I made Jason pose by the waterfall even though he didn't want to because "we live in Colorado".


And we ran into Handy Manny on our way to the theater for the Aladdin show:


Waiting for the show:

The show was one of the bigger highlights of my trip. I'm sure the kids liked other things more and I liked experiencing it with them, of course. But Jason and I really enjoyed this show. It's similar to the story line of the movie but it's pretty well done and Genie has some more modern and hysterical lines. Good times.

We did a few more things while still at California Adventure waiting for the next show. Easton and Jason did the Mulholland Madness mini-coaster a few more times (E and I rode it the day before). Dalton, Autumn and I rode Mickey's Fun Wheel again. It wasn't long before Dalton fell asleep on Jason:


And Easton was hoping for a rest as well while we waited to get into "Playhouse Disney Live!"


We had a really hard time waking Dalton up for the show. But it was all his favorites! He'd been so excited about it when he heard we could do it on our trip. Eventually we were able to rouse him and we all enjoyed the puppet show. Even Autumn sat on her own spot of the floor to watch.

Once that show was over, California Adventure was nearing closing and we'd done just about everything there was to do there...including the Mission Tortilla Factory tour which Jason didn't want to do but Easton actually did. And we all got a free tortilla at the end of our 90 second tour. And a PhotoPass picture:


We then walked back over to Disneyland and ran into a short line to see Mickey right when we walked in. When we were the second-to-next people in the queue, Minnie joined him! Score!


We browsed the hat shop on Main Street with no intentions of buying anything unless we found Chip, Dale, or Woody. But we did try on some ears:


As our trip was winding down and we'd already covered most of the attractions we were hoping to get to, we had some more time to just enjoy being at Disney and doing things like posing with statues:


And the castle:








We had to have one more go on Buzz Blasters:


And we decided to head back over to Mickey's Toontown to enjoy the simpler parts of the park because the boys do love it so:










Squished Sweetie in line for Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin:

The Cast Member informed us it's a jerky ride and she'd have to come out of the sling anyway to ride it so she and Jason decided to sit it out. After riding it again this time, I'm a little surprised I rode that one while pregnant last year. Rough!















Parades were something we'd opted to skip on our last vacation out here but this time we had enough time to enjoy them. We were thrilled to see "Clarice" the lady friend of Chip and Dale. I told everyone that she wouldn't be there. That no one knows who she is. But I was happily proved wrong:


And our favorite "couple of crazy rascals":


Shoulders are the best parade viewing spot:




We got a couple more pictures in front of the castle once Autumn was awake and turned around. I couldn't decide which one I liked more so I'm showing you both. :)



The guy that took these saw my D5000 and said, "I know the camera well" (he had one too) and offered to take our pictures.

We wrapped up our evening with a few more things, I'm sure, and some souvenir shopping. Easton chose a Star Wars toy that you could buy at Target. He was trying to talk Dalton into wanting a Mickey Lightsaber but Dalton opted for a Baby Woody and we chose a Baby Ariel for Autumn.

I saw something personalized with Autumn's name...Tinkerbell keychains!

Giving our kids their slightly uncommon names, we don't anything personalized for any of them. However, Easton's name is definitely rising in popularity (darn it!) so maybe one day we'll see stuff with his name on it. And I feel like we could see Dalton's name here and there. But it was fun to see one with Autumn's little name.

I had no idea how popular her name is but we've met a LOT of Autumn's since she's been born. There was even one in Easton's Sunday School class the other day! The Social Security Popular Baby Name list for 2009 just came out and "Autumn" is 81st! What!?!? It's been in the Top 100 for the last 10 years??? I had no idea. Anyway...

We then bid adieu to Disneyland for who knows how long. We currently plan on Disney WORLD the next time we do Disney so it was kind of sad. We stopped for a late dinner at the Mimi's Cafe next to the hotel. Autumn had a blow out just as the food arrived and I took the kids to the hotel as soon as we'd finished eating while Jason stayed behind to pay. We were ready for bed!

(Notice Dalton's and Autumn's little souvenirs?)

What a great trip!