Disneyland Vacation July 2008

Beware - this is A LONG one!

Our primary reason for driving out to California last week was to go to Jason's brother James' wedding. We went into debt immediately after the first swipe of our magical credit card with our first tank of gas leaving San Antonio. That's right folks - we didn't have any money saved up for this trip. We didn't know Jason was even going to get the time off from work up until a week prior to our trip, so no - we were not financially prepared. We thought, "Hey! If we're going to put $1,500+ on our magical 0% interest credit card to go to James' wedding - why not throw another $1,500 on that bad boy and stop by Disneyland on the way!!" Jason doesn't get a lot of time off from work, so when he does - we usually go visit family (which is totally fine - what other time will we get to see them?). So even though we were en route to a family affair, our stop in Disneyland was officially our first family vacation!
So in true Tricia fashion - I'm posting WAY too many pictures of our trip, so I hope you aren't too overwhelmed with my ridiculous picture overload!! ;)  

We left San Antonio on July 26th at 9am as soon as Jason got home from being on call at the hospital and we drove and drove...and drove some more.  

Leaving San Antonio...good riddance!! (I wish it were for good!);)


Katie happy to be in the car...until 5 minutes had passed...

Kristin being silly as usual

We (and when I say we, I mean Jason) drove about 14 hours until we reached Ft. Huachuca - an army base near Tucson, Arizona (woot woot - that was for you Laura-poo ;) ). We were so relieved to finally stop...Katie is not one for traveling long distances (or short distances for that matter)!  

Playground at Ft. Huachuca, AZ where we spent the night (the sign says it all)  ;)

The girls squeezing in some playtime before being trapped in the car for another 8 hours

How in the heck??

The Army Lodge at Ft. Huachuca, AZ

We ate their complimentary breakfast and headed out.  We were extremely disappointed though - after we realized there was still 8 hours left and not 5 like we had originally thought. Jason drove about 2 hours before I took over.  I drove about 5 hours until I almost stranded us on the side of the rode with an empty tank!!  We had been driving in a highly populated part of California, so I thought it was safe to wait just a little bit longer to pull over for gas...until we took an exit to nowhere!  It was the right way to go, but my gas light had just come on as I took the exit and there was no exits, gas stations or ANYTHING in sight!  I was getting really nervous, so I woke up Jason and turned the air conditioner way down and tried to press the gas pedal gently for about 20-30 minutes...until we finally saw a Walmart in the distance - and where there's a Walmart, there's civilization!!  Hooray!!  I was SO relieved to not have been at fault for stranding my family on the side of the rode (which had no shoulders to even stop on)!

Jason - who no longer trusted me to drive - took over driving the last 30 minutes.  Pssh!  I had to keep hearing about how "this is why he always stops for gas when we get just below a half tank."  Yeah yeah yeah.  Whatever!  ;)

Jason overly excited to see signs for Disneyland Hotel

The street Disneyland Hotel is located on

Is it just me, or does Jason scream like a girl?  ;)

Kristin and Mickey Mouse in front of Hotel

Katie loves the huge statue of Mickey

Jason and Kristin going inside to check in

Entering our $300/night room...

Katie and Kristin enjoying the view of the Neverland Pool from our balcony

We checked into the hotel and were put in the Dreams Tower on the 5th floor facing the pool. After we unloaded our bags, we put our swimsuits on and headed down to the pool.  It was so cute!  The pool had a Peter Pan themed area with a 100-foot water-slide, a pirate ship and the hungry crocodile.  The water was frickin' cold, so we spent most of our time over in the oversized hot tub (more like a small pool).  Since I'm pregnant, I couldn't go into the hot tub, so I spent the whole time with my feet in the water while I sat on the ledge.  Hmph!  

Kristin and Katie ready to swim

There isn't anything great about this picture except for Katie's cute flat face!  ;)

Jason and the girls enjoying the hot tub

Katie singing the Little Mermaid song after seeing the Ariel statue

Jason going down the water slide at the pool

Jason feeding Katie to the crocodile

The view of our hotel from the pool (our room is hidden somewhere behind the palm branches)

After about an hour, we went back up to the room to get dressed and go exploring!  There were so many things to go see!!  Just on the hotel grounds alone!  Not to mention Downtown Disney! I love everything Disney!!  :)  We checked out Goofy's Kitchen - well we looked through the window anyways - and Pluto blew Kristin kisses on his way out.  Then we found the Horseshoe Waterfalls, arcade and Wine Cellar (which the kids weren't allowed into).  We decided to look for dinner in Downtown Disney (just a 5 minute walk away) and ended up going to Napolini's (since it was one of the few places where there wasn't a wait) to get pizza slices and pasta salad. Mmmm...yummy!  It really wasn't a whole lot of food, so we were still a little hungry on our way back to the hotel, so we stopped at Croc's Bits and Bites next to the pool for what we thought would be a small tray of nachos - only it ended up being a huge tray topped with huge heaps of chicken, gaucamole, cheese, sour cream and tomatoes!  I think that thing weighed 20 pounds!  It was good, but we hardly ate any of it and the rest of it sat in our little hotel fridge for the rest of our stay. What a waste! 

Katie after bathtime: She has no shame!

Jason and Katie watching a princess bedtime story on the Hotel's channel

We went to bed after Jason set up the wake up call for 7am.  The next morning, Jason and I woke up really early (we must have been more excited than the girls were).  Jason went to Team Mickey (the hotel's gym) while I started getting ready.  I heard the phone ring with the wake up call (a recorded voice of Mickey).  It took Kristin forever to answer the phone and by the time she finally did, Mickey had hung up.  Pssh!  How rude!  ;)  He ended up calling back 5 minutes later and this time she was more awake to pick it up in time this time.  She was so happy to hear Mickey say how glad he was that she was there and that he'd see her really soon. It was so cute!   After Jason got back and showered, we headed out to Downtown Disney to catch the monorail into Tomorrow Land in Disneyland.  

Kristin waiting for the monorail

We took the monorail into the park and got off in Tomorrowland.  We walked by a cast member to ask for a map and then she gave us passes to take Kristin to Fantasyland later on and meet some princesses!  Kristin was so excited!  She looked forward to it for most of the day!  We waited in line for a few minutes for the Dumbo ride and took a spin before heading over to Mickey's Toontown to meet some characters.  I don't know how many times I had been to Disneyland when I was growing up and I had never been on the Dumbo ride!  I mean - it's definitely NOT one of my favorite rides, but I was happy to ride anything that didn't have a warning to pregnant people!!

On our way to Toontown, we stopped by a little gift shop to buy the girls each a princess baby doll. Kristin picked out Ariel (no surprise there) and Katie picked out Cinderella.  Then we went into Toontown - only we were slightly disappointed that we didn't meet more than two characters - Goofy and Minnie.  Every time we tried to get in line for Mickey - they weren't seeing any more people.  Rrrrrr...  Oh well.  Then we rode Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin ride (eh - not that impressive).  We still hadn't eaten breakfast, so we stopped by a little snack stand afterwards and bought some veggies and dip, some grapes and water.  We were saving up tummy space for our lunch reservations at Blue Bayou (the Pirates of the Caribbean restauarant).  :) Before leaving Mickey's Toontown, we walked through Minnie's House and Goofy's Playhouse and Jason and Kristin rode Gadget's Go Coaster (again - not impressive).  

Jason and Kristin on the Dumbo ride

Me and Katie on the Dumbo ride

The girls after picking out their princess baby dolls

Jason, the girls and Goofy

Me, the girls and Minnie Mouse

Katie playing in Goofy's Playhouse

Me and the girls in Toon Town

After our sparse breakfast, we went to the Star Trader store in Tomorrowland (my favorite store in the whole park) to find Kristin some Minnie ears.  Of course, she picked out the most girlie-looking Minnie ears she could find - complete with strips of veiling and sequins.  Sheesh. Then we went to Fantasyland to ride the King Arthur Carrousel (insert gagging here). Then we ran over to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride. I was skeptical about this one - because I had heard from my parents that this was the ONLY ride my nephew Jonathan liked at Disneyland (and I know the only thing he seems interested in is shooting)! We were surprised to find that we all liked the ride (well - Katie probably could have cared less, but at least she didn't complain). You get points for all of the bad guy (Zurg) targets throughout the ride. Before the ride started, Jason said, "Prepare to lose Tricia!" I was pretty sure I would lose to Jason, but I went in there ready to try and beat his score! Surprisingly enough - I ended up beating his score...by A LOT!!! Hahahahaha!! Take that Mr. Prepare-to-lose!!  When we saw the pictures afterwards, I could tell that I was taking this ride VERY seriously! Hahaha!! There were little computer screens afterwards for us to type in our email addresses, so our pictures could be emailed to us. The pictures came out kind of crappy and grainy-looking, but who cares? The pictures were free!! :)  Jason was quite humiliated that I had beaten him...especially after he was SO sure he could beat me.  Pride cometh before a fall Dr. Capra!!  ;)

King Arthur Carrousel

Kristin's score: 5,500 Jason's score: 27,600

A very serious Tricia's score: 61,700 Ba-da-bing!! ;) Katie' score: 0 :)

After Jason's humiliation had subsided, we headed back to Tomorrowland to take Kristin to the Jedi Training Academy (where a jedi master randomly selects children from the audience and shows them how to use lightsabers to prepare them for a duel against either Darth Vader or Darth Maul).  Kristin said she'd do it (probably just to please Jason - but she was totally nervous).  We wasted a good 30 minutes waiting for the show to begin and when the jedi master started choosing kids (enthusiastic kids I might add), Kristin broke down and started crying (while keeping her hand raised the whole time).  It was so sad!  She wanted to do it because Jason likes Star Wars so much, but she was too scared to actually follow through with it.  Poor little cutie!  It was so sad!  So we left and took the girls over to Critter Country to meet Winnie the Pooh and his friends.  Kristin has never been a fan of oversized stuffed animals - she prefers human princesses, so we were shocked to find that Katie LOVED all of the furry characters!  She would happily walk over, start to hesitate, stick her fingers in her mouth and continue to walk up to them and then lean her head on them.  Then she wouldn't want to leave them!  It was the funniest thing ever!  All the characters seemed to love her - maybe because most tiny kids are probably scared of them (if they're anything like Kristin was as a baby)!

The girls with Winnie the Pooh

The girls with Eoyore  (Katie was so cozy, she didn't want to leave)

The girls with Tigger

Tigger copying Katie's signature finger-sucking pose

Then we went next door to New Orleans Square to go to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  It had been renovated a couple years ago, so it was much better than we remember it being a few years ago.  After the ride was over, we wasted time walking around all of the shops - until it was time for our 2pm reservation at Blue Bayou.  Mmm...yummy!  We ordered the Monte Cristo sandwich with potatoes, vegetables and salad to share and Kristin and Katie got a kids macaroni and cheese with veggies and dip to share.  I was sort of annoyed that they charged $5 for Jason and I to share though - as if either one of us could have finished off one of those giant greasy deep-fried sandwiches all by ourselves!  Kristin hated the macaroni and cheese because it didn't taste like the one out of the box (sheesh), so her and Katie ate all of the veggies and dip and rolls.  

Me and the girls waiting for lunch

Katie trying on Kristin's Minnie ears

Walking around New Orleans Square

Katie is very excited about the Blue Bayou!

And Jason is too!  

After we were finished with lunch, we ran over to Fantasyland to the Disney Princess Fantasy Faire where we had a scheduled time for Kristin to meet two princesses.  Kristin and Katie made paper crowns while they were waiting and then it was time to go in and meet Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.  Kristin was very excited about meeting them.  Katie, however, was not. She walked right on past them and stayed clear of them.  I can't understand how she wasn't afraid of the big furry characters outside, but she was terrified of these sweet-looking princesses!  

Katie steers clear of the humans...

Kristin with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty

It's funny that she liked them so much, neither Snow White or Sleeping Beauty are her favorite Disney movies (because she's scared of the Queen and Malificent) 

After meeting with the princesses, we headed over to Frontierland, so Jason and Kristin could ride Splash Mountain together.  Splash Mountain is my FAVORITE ride at Disneyland and I couldn't ride it!!!!  Of course having a baby is worth the sacrifice of missing out on my favorite ride, but I was still a little sad.  Sniff sniff.  :(  I was even more sad that they wouldn't let meat least walk through the line with Jason and Kristin (like you usually can with all of the other rides) because of some retarded safety hazard (something to do with me crossing over to the other side of the log with a baby).  Whatever!  I thought I'd at least catch a glimpse of some of the ride and get sprayed with a mist of water from it.  Hmph!  I wasn't even allowed that tiny satisfaction!  

After Jason and Kristin were finished enjoying MY favorite ride, we took the monorail back out to the hotel.  We went to the pool for a little bit before meeting up with Rachel and Nate, Michael, James and Tish and some of Tish' family for dinner.  We decided to go to Rainforest Cafe - even with the hour wait.  We spent some of our wait across from the restaurant at Legoland where Jason and Mike spent most of there time at the lego table.

It was finally time for dinner.  We ate and drank whilst enjoying jabbering away with our family.  I had fun...even though I couldn't partake of all the pretty drinks going around the table.  

James, Jason, Mike and Nate

Kristin and R2-D2 at Legoland

Tish and James with their matching lego mugs

Jason and Michael having way too much fun at a lego table (with all of the other little kids)

Kristin and Katie at the lego table

Tish and James doing one of their famous poses for the camera at Rainforest Cafe

Me and Jason sharing a moment with one of the fish in the tank behind us

Poor Kristin is falling asleep before her food even arrives

We originally thought we were going to have time to go back into the park and watch the fireworks and ride a few more rides, but we ended up almost closing the Rainforest Cafe instead.  We went back to our room and fell into bed.  

The next morning, we woke up a little late and missed our early entry into the park (hotel guests can get into the park 1 hour early before everyone else).  Dang blast it!  

We decided to enter the park the traditional way this time.  We walked through Downtown Disney to get to the main entrance and went inside.  We walked through Main Street and looked at all of the shops and horse-drawn carriages.  We went to the Blue Ribbon Bakery for breakfast and got a huge sickening cinnamon roll to share, yogurt parfait and drinks.  

Then Kristin chose our first ride of the day - the Dumbo ride...again.    

Me and Kristin on the Dumbo ride

After the Dumbo ride, we realized there was a show Kristin wanted to see that was about to start over in California Adventure, so we zoomed out of the park and into CA Adventure.  It was Playhouse Disney Live on Stage (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins and Winnie the Pooh).  The only thing Kristin was interested in seeing was the Little Einsteins, so we had to sit through the whole boring show (on the floor) to finally see the Little Einstein puppets.  Kristin liked seeing them, but the rest of the show was pretty lame!  

When that show was finally over, we walked down the road and Kristin saw Snow White and had to wait in line to see her again.

Kristin talking with Snow White

Kristin and Snow White

We headed over to the an Interactive show called Turtle Talk with Crush (the sea turtle from Finding Nemo). We still can't figure out how the heck they do this show, but it was great! The sea turtle interacts with the audience - answering questions and making jokes (including funny-looking faces when he's making fun of someone).  We had a pretty small audience and the little kids were seated on the floor in front of us (except for Katie - Jason had to get up with her and stand in the back because she was starting to get annoying).  Near the end of the 10-min show, the room started shaking pretty violently.  I looked up and saw the lights shaking on the ceiling.  I looked back at Jason and he looked content (thinking this was a part of the show), but I knew better!  Why would an interactive show about sea creatures need to shake??!!  It seemed as though I was the only one concerned about the shaking.  It was then that I realized..."Eek! We're in California!  They have earthquakes!!"  After I had my epiphany, I lurched forward - preparing to grab Kristin and run to the back where Jason was and stand under a door frame. But mid-leap - I realized everyone else knew it was an earthquake, but they didn't seem phased in the least!  Then I felt silly, for starting to jump up, so I slowly slid backwards and back into my seat (while hearing other parents quietly whisper to their kids, "Don't worry - it's just an earthquake." As if earthquakes are always safe and predictable).  Sheesh!  Why was I the only one prepared to take any type of precautionary steps?!   Did I forget to mention that all the while - the room was still shaking and sloshing back and forth??  I was starting to get sea sick! I had never been in an earthquake and I would hate to be in anything worse than the one I had just experienced!  We found out later that it was a 5.6 on the Richter scale.  Of all days to have an earthquake!  Come on!!

Unfortunately for us, all of the rides at both Disneyland and CA Adventure were shut down for a few hours (there was no damage done, but they wanted to ensure all the rides were working properly).  I can't imagine that this would take more than a few practice runs of each ride, so I think they were all just taking a big break at our expense!!  Of course they were still making tons of money - because now that there were no rides to ride, everyone was filling up all of the restaurants and stores!  

This was the one and only day that Rachel and Nate were coming to Disneyland (to meet us), so I felt bad that the rides were shut down for so long.  We still had fun with them though!  We left California Adventure (Disneyland is way more fun) and we met Rachel and Nate over in Adventureland at the Bengal Tiger for lunch.  I love Bengal Tiger!!  It's always been one of my favorite places in Disneyland to go for lunch!  We ate skewered beef and chicken, grilled veggies, Mickey Mouse pretzel, fresh fruit tray and a cookie.  It was so good!

Kristin and her Aunt Rachel at Bengal Tiger

After lunch, all the rides were still closed, so we waited in line to watch the Indiana Jones show. It was a bit cheesy, but it gave us something to do while we waited for the rides to open back up. 

Rachel and Nate pretending to escape the gigantic rolling ball by the Indiana Jones ride

Uncle Nate following suit after Katie pulls up her shirt to look at her bellybutton 

Rachel and Nate after the lame Indiana Jones show

After the show had ended, we picked out a spot in front of Tomorrowland to watch the parade and eat churros. I thought the parade was cute, but I still prefer the Electrical Parade late at night (which we missed - because they only do it over in CA Adventure now and we didn't feel like going back over there).    

Tinker Bell and Peter Pan

Beauty and the Beast

Little Mermaid (Kristin and my favorite)

Ursula

Mickey and Minnie Mouse

After the parade was over, we headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion (where Kristin hid her head in Jason's lap the entire ride) in New Orleans Square.  I used to like the Haunted Mansion, but I don't think I care too much for it anymore.  When we were finished with those rides, we back to Frontierland to walk around and get Root Beer Floats at The Golden Horseshoe (where we received reserved front row seating for the next showing of Billy Hill and the Hillbillies).  We came back a little while later to watch the show and it was hilarious!!!  We wouldn't have even known about it or even been interested if we hadn't gone in for floats earlier.  They were four brothers, all named Billy and they were amazing musicians that mixed blugrass with comedy.  We all couldn't stop laughing!!  I would definitely go watch it again!  The main guy (the one pictured below) was joking with us before one of the songs.  Nate was holding Katie and Jason was holding Kristin.  Rachel and I were sitting next to each other beside them.  He was talking with an Elvis tone of voice when he asked Rachel, "Baby's mama?" When Rachel shook her head no, he asked Nate, "Papa?" He shook his head no.  Then he asked me, "Mama?" I shook my head yes and he started singing some Elvis song about Mamas.  My face was probably 20 shades of red.  Afterwards, he asked Jason, "Papa?" Jason shook his head yes. Then he said (as if he finally figured it out) while pointing us out, "Mama (Me), Mama's baby (Katie), Papa (Jason), Baby (Kristin)." And then he asked Nate, "Uh...uncle?"  When Nate shook his head yes, the guy said, "Who cares?!" Everyone started laughing and laughing.  I wish I had known to videotape this part of it - because I am HORRIBLE at trying to retell funny stories!!   

Billy Hill and the Hillbillies doing Elvis

He reminded me of a hillbilly version of Jim Carey

We went back over to Adventureland to see if Indiana Jones was running again - but it wasn't, so we decided to climb up Tarzan's Treehouse and look around.  Then we walked around to find a caricature place for Rachel and Nate to get their portrait done.  They made a reservation and we had enough time to go down a few shops to the Royal Street Veranda to get clam chowder served in sourdough bowls for dinner.  Then we went down to watch Rachel and Nate get their caricature drawn.  I've always wanted Jason and I to get one, but we've waiting so long - now we'd have to have our kids drawn into it too and we know Katie would not allow us to make her sit for very long...so I guess I'll have to wait until she's older. While Jason watched Rachel and Nate with Katie, Kristin and I walked down the little alley and stopped in a pin trading store called La Mascarade d' Orleans.  I quickly found a pin trading set for Jason (since he wouldn't stop talking about how much he wanted to do it and that his Grandpa used to do pin-trading).  I would have let him get a pin trading set the day before, but I thought you had to trade pins with complete strangers and I was not about to waste my day searching out strangers and begging them to trade pins with us)!  But we found out (unfortunately late into the 2nd day) that if you ask any cast member (Disney employee) to trade pins with you - they have to say yes!  It's great!  So without Jason knowing, I got him the necklace thing, necklace weight and two pins. He was so excited that we had to go back and get Kristin and Rachel a set to start out with too - along with some cheaper pins to trade with!  150 freakin' dollars later, we began our pin trading rampage!  I wish we had known about the cast member thing sooner!  We could have been trading pins for the past two days!  Oh well.  We'll have to bring our pins next time we make it out to Disneyland.     

Nate and Rachel in Tarzan's Treehouse

Jason, me and the girls in Tarzan's treeshouse

Rachel and Nate getting their caricatures drawn in New Orleans Square

Almost done!

A late start at pin trading

After we had acquired some good pin trades (with hunted down every cast member we could find) and rode a couple more rides (Splash Mountain and Star Tours), we took a break to watch the fireworks display and then the Fantasmic special effects show.  The girls passed out in the stroller somewhere between the fireworks and Fantasmic. They were exhausted and so were we!!!  

Sleeping Beauty's castle

Main Street

Fireworks display

End of Fantasmic special effects show

The girls passed out in the stroller

Before leaving the park, I HAD to find a Mickey tee-shirt and I hadn't had any success in any of the other stores.  We stopped in a couple of stores on Main Street and I finally found an okay Mickey tee-shirt in the Disney Showcase store along with a Mickey keychain.  We finally walked outside the park and back to the hotel.  We said goodnight to Rachel and Nate (who still had to drive back to their hotel - ugh).  The next morning, I exercised at Team Mickey (to work off all of that yummy park food), took a shower and then sadly - we checked out.  Staying at the Disneyland Hotel may have been ridiculously overpriced, but we loved it!  It felt like we never left the park the whole time we were there!  We'll definitely do it again...and maybe next time I can ride all of the rides and we can see more of the park!