California Vacation-California Adventure

Wednesday, September 7th we relaxed in the morning/afternoon and then headed up to David & Kristene's. We stopped and got lunch with Steve and Mark at Miguel Jr. It was good to visit and catch up. David & Kristene both had church meetings that night, so we weren't able to hang out or talk much with them. While preparing for California Adventure, I was able to borrow a memory card for my camera from David and it was so nice to have as I didn't want to rely on my phone the whole time for taking pictures.

Thursday, September 8th was our day at California Adventure! It was my first time there as well and so I was excited to check it out. We arrived there around 10:30am (opened at 10) and I wanted to make sure we stuck to the first few items on the agenda. When we walked in, we saw Mickey singing and dancing with some newspaper boys to a Newsies song! It was fun to stop and watch that happen.

We sat Kylie on the potty every time we got to the parking garage.

While Kylie & I were watching the show, a photo pass person took this pictures of Scott & Jordan.

After the show, we headed to get tickets to the Frozen Live show. After we got those, we headed to meet Anna & Elsa. The line wasn't too bad, but it did take a bit before we got to see them. It was good to get it done early in the day, though. We met them in the Animation Academy and it was fun to see the early sketches of the movies. It did make waiting in line a little easier for Kylie as she was entertained by the screen. Jordan, on the other hand, was a little bit harder to keep in check. Right before we met them, they played the Let It Go scene from Frozen and Kylie was singing along to it. She was talking to me about what she was going to say to them and what questions to ask. Of course, once we go in there, she's star struck and doesn't say a thing. She was super cute though and Jordan had fun crashing the party.

After meeting Anna & Elsa, we headed to ride the Monster’s Inc. ride! Kylie had a blast riding that one and we met a nice couple in line who were from Utah as well. They noticed my bag said Intermountain on it and decided to say hi. After riding the Monster’s Inc. ride, I wanted to go get our World of Color fast passes. On the way there, we saw Pluto again and stood in line to say hi. While Scott was standing in line, I ran to get our fast passes. Kylie had fun seeing Pluto and he was the last character we saw that day. For some reason, we didn’t run into very many characters at California Adventure. It made me even more grateful that we were able to see so many at Disneyland two days before.

 

After meeting Pluto and getting those passes, we went and got some lunch before the Frozen show. I’m so glad we got our tickets early because we were able to be seated in the lower area of the theater. We had great seats and it was a well put on show. It took Scott a little bit to put Jordan to sleep, but he slept through the whole show. I bought some popcorn for Kylie and that helped keep her calm for about half of it. She started to get antsy towards the end, but it was easy to distract her with the things happening in the show. It took time out of our day to watch it, but I’m so glad we did. Kylie could not stop clapping and had such an enjoyable time. 

 

After the Frozen show, I picked up some Tower of Terror fast passes. They are replacing the Tower of Terror theme with Guardians of the Galaxy, starting in January, so we had to make sure to ride it before it goes away. We then headed to Bug’s Life land and it’s the perfect place for little kids. Kylie could ride 3 out of the 4 rides and they had a small splash pad that the kids played in. I was feeling tired by this point and I totally brought the kids’ swimsuits as I knew there was a splash pad. I didn’t care to put them in it, but looking back I totally should have as Kylie ended up wetting her last pair of shorts I brought, causing us to put her in Jordan’s. Either way, they both had a blast in the splash pad and it was great to just let them run around and have fun.

Jordan loved the spinning ladybug ride.

On Heimlich's chew chew train!

Jordan had a blast on this one as well.

Kylie & I rode this one together.

After Bug’s Life land, we headed to Cars land. Kylie has never cared to watch the Cars movies, so this area did not excite her very much. There were quite a few photo pass photographers there and so we took a lot of pictures in this area. I wanted to ride the Radiator Springs Racers ride and so I went and did single rider thanks to Scott watching the kids. After the ride, we were done with the area, so we headed out to go ride Tower of Terror. I rode the ride first while Scott watched the kids and then we switched. 

Trying to get a picture of just the kids.

Trying to get a picture of the kids walking down the street.

Kylie kept pulling Jordan along. Haha.

After that, we started to make our way towards Paradise Pier. On the way, we got some pictures in the Grizzly Peak area and then I had to stop and get a sundae from the Ghirardelli shop! After that, we got to the pier and I wanted to ride the California Screaming roller coaster. I did single rider, but it took forever to get through the line and I felt bad that Scott had to watch the kids for so long. It was nice of him to do though as I had a blast riding that ride. After the roller coaster, we saw the carousel and were able to ride it 3 times in a row! This was the best part of the day. I rode the first time, but the next two I sat out with Jordan. Kylie had a blast waving to me each time she went around. After the third time, she came over to me and just gave me the biggest hug while saying thank you. It was just the sweetest thing to see her so happy.

We wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, but it closed early due to the World of Color show. We went to our area and it was already pretty crowded. We found a spot that worked with our stroller and it was close to an edge, so when it was over we were able to get out easily. I pulled out the glow sticks and the kids had fun with them for about 5 minutes and then they started breaking down as they really hadn’t had a nap. Eventually, Kylie & Jordan both fell asleep during the show. The show was technically after the park closed and it was so cool to watch. I enjoyed it very much and it was worth it to stay later and see it. We got dinner on the way back home again and mentally prepped ourselves for Disneyland the next day.