California Adventure, Day Two

Dave and I were super excited to see this Disney California Adventure Park for the first time.  It's a sister park to Disneyland, separated by just a small promenade.  From the park's name, you can guess that this is a California themed amusement park.  It's divided into the different sections of California (Boardwalks, Hollywood, Redwood Forests, Central Valley, Bay Area...) with rides and attractions that match each section's theme.  We strolled under the Golden Gate Bridge to get in the park...

Then we raced across the bay to the Paradise Pier area to immediately board the park's super-headliner attraction: the mind-blowing 4-D Toy Story Mania ride. In this ride, you spin around in a vehicle, wearing 3-D glasses and using a "gun" to shoot virtual eggs, darts, rings, balls, etc. at changing targets. The Toy Story characters are there in 3-D, cheering you on.  A computer on your vehicle keeps track of your score and accuracy. And fun effects, like a burst of air in your face, hit or swing at you when you hit targets. This was THE BEST RIDE and Delia love, love, loved it! We ended up playing/riding it 4 times and chose an at-home Wii version of this game/ride as our family's Disney souvenir.

 

There were so many great memories at the California Adventure Park.  Another one was the opportunity to totally interact with Crush, the sea turtle from Finding Nemo!  At the Turtle Talk exhibit, an auditorium is filled with people watching Crush give a presentation on a big screen.  Then, Crush starts picking people from the audience to ask him real questions!  Even I couldn't figure out the magic behind this one.  Ella was chosen when Crush said, "There's a little dudette with a sleeveless shell and an extra pair of ears..."  Ella was given the nickname "Epic Ella" by Crush.  Then he answered her question and had a short conversation with her!  Of course, she thinks she spoke with the actual Crush from the movie.  I may actually believe that too!

A favorite ride of the girls was King Triton's beautiful under-the-sea carousel.  We were allowed to just stay on and ride it as many times as we wanted, so we had to try out each of the ocean animals.

In the Hollywood section of the park, we watched this spectacular Broadway-style show of Aladdin.  Based on the movie, the story was familiar, but the wise-guy genie kept cracking a bunch of jokes at the expense of people like Charlie Sheen and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The special effects were great in this show-- actual flying carpets, huge elephants, the genie disappearing and reappearing.  It was another thing at the top of our favorite list!

For years, this park has been building this grand and glorious Little Mermaid ride.  It was scheduled to have its grand opening on June 3, but we walked by and noticed they had just opened it up for the very first time for us to have a sneak peek that day!  The ride was beautiful and made you feel like you were in the movie, but even cooler was that we made Disney history in saying we were one of the first ones to experience this gonna-be-a-classic ride!

We spent the afternoon in the shady Redwood Creek area, letting the kids run around another neat play area.  This was a ropes challenge course and Delia was at the highest level in no time.  I was feeling a little unnerved chasing after her on those shaky ropes above the trees.

It was exhausting to have this much fun! We started seeing a little more fatigue from the girls on this second day, but over all, they were still doing great! So we still pushed for another 12 hour day in the park.

Woody and the army men were some of our favorite characters to bump into at CA Adventure.

We took a brief class at the Animation Academy that walked us through the drawing of Dopey the Dwarf, step by step.  Ella just loved this!  I got a real kick out of Delia's attempt-- you can see all the shapes!

As the sun set, we enjoyed cooling off and watching the whole place light up.  The pier was especially beautiful and we had super seats for their nighttime show, the World of Color.  This was a program of lighted and dancing fountains with images of movie characters projected on the spray.  It's hard to describe, but like everything else Disney, it was fantastic!

Disneyland, Day One

Well, here I am again, completely overwhelmed at the task of preserving our Disneyland Vacation memories.  I have over 300 pictures, and just as many sweet stories about how much the girls loved this experience.  In the day we've been home, I've been busy making Ella's birthday cake, helping out at school, unpacking, doing laundry, filling our empty fridge with groceries and all the while pondering what to write.  I think I'll just jump in and apologize in advance if I ramble...

 

On our first morning in Disneyland, we arrived early and got to take advantage of "Magical Morning"-- a whole hour of park enjoyment not open to the general public.  It was exhilarating to be lined up at the gate, knowing a great day was ahead of us. 

One of the first rides we did was Buzz Lightyear's Astroblasters, where you ride and play laser tag at the same time.  We learned quickly that Delia was not so down with rides that were too dark or noisy.  We tried a few others, like the Finding Nemo submarine ride, and realized we needed to just head to Fantasyland and show Delia some of the classic rides.

It's a Small World became a quick favorite of ours.  We ended up visiting our little international buddies 4 times in 3 days and the song still plays in my dreams (for real)!  One thing nice about doing the park on the last weekdays of the off season was minimal crowds.  There were several rides that we walked right on to.

The Dumbo ride was loved by Delia who took great pride in making it fly crazy.

You can't do Disney without a spin on the teacups-- also loved by the girls.

There were lots of places to line up and meet with characters.  These lines were major, though, so we just picked one to do.  Meeting the fairies in Pixie Hollow ended up being worth the wait.  When it was our turn, the girls charged at them and flew into their arms for hugs.  It was sweet how the fairies got low to their level and had a nice long chat about how Ella and Delia's day was going.  One thing I really loved about Ella's age, in particular, was that she was old/tall/brave enough to ride and love every big ride, but still young enough to be awed at the characters and dazzled by the magic.

We knew Delia just wouldn't do certain rides like Pirates of the Caribbean or The Haunted Mansion, and we didn't want to miss these headliners, so we took advantage of "switching off."  We'd all wait in line and then Dave would ride with Ella while I waited with Delia.  When the vehicle returned, I would take my turn with Ella.  While I waited with Delia for Dave and Ella to finish their long ride on Pirates, we were delighted to find this choir of pirates singing funny drinking songs.  Delia shivered at the thought of the dark ride, but absolutely loved dancing with the pirates.  She just saw this picture and said, "Hey! There's my nice pirate!"  There were a lot of moments of joy for her too, even in spite of her timidity.

The afternoon was the perfect time to let the kids just run around a really cool play area called Pirate's Lair, which we had to get to on a raft since it was on an island.  They balanced across shaky bridges, explored caves, climbed ships and eventually found "the gleaming booty"!

We also had to take a little break for some ice cream!

Delia really liked her first roller coaster ride.  The pretty tame Matterhorn Bobsleds proved to be just the right amount of wild for her.  Except for the abominable snowman (or "white, growling gorilla" as Delia called him) that popped out at us, she gave this ride a thumbs up.

Ella gave me some of my favorite memories when she would randomly hug me and say heartfelt things like, "When I'm a mom and have kids, I'm going to do this exact same trip with them!" or "It's been my dream to go to Disneyland forever and it's even better than I dreamed it would be!"

Dave and I realized that we tend to tackle vacations pretty fiercely.  On this first day, we spent all 12 hours in the park and did almost every ride, some several times!  Though we pushed the girls, they did so great.  I think sheer excitement and adrenaline kept them smiling all day. 

A BIG Birthday Celebration!

This year, Ella's (and Delia's in a month) birthday was super special with the BIG present being their first trip to Disneyland.  Because we've been enjoying this gift for the past week, today, Ella's actual birthday, has been a somewhat normal day.  Here are a few birthday highlights from the past week:

One of the great things about a trip down south is the opportunity to visit so many of our favorite friends.  On the way to Disneyland, we were able to meet Anna for dinner.  She gave the girls their birthday gifts and the Bop It Ella received got non-stop play during the long car rides and down time in the hotel.  Thanks, Anna!  ("Bop it...twist it...pull it!")

On our last day in the park, we let Ella celebrate her "Disney Birthday".  She got this button, advertising her birthday to the public and was given lots of special attention by the cast members and characters.  She was picked to help drop the rope and officially open the park.  The lady running Small World announced "Happy birthday, Ella!" on the microphone for all in line to hear.  And another cast member asked for Ella's help with a very important job-- carrying a timer through the Splash Mountain line to measure how long we waited.  

On this day, we also chose to get her free birthday meal at California Pizza Kitchen.

Auntie Karen had the fun idea of telling the girls they could pick out their birthday presents from her family while we were at Disney.  The last thing we did before heading home was visit the massive World of Disney store in Downtown Disney.  The girls knew exactly what gift they wanted-- a fancy Rapunzel dress to share.

We made a few more stops to see friends on the way home (which I'll tell you more about later).  At Dorina's, birthday girls, Ella and Meilani shared a song and candles in the brownies after our Memorial Day BBQ.

Back home today, Ella got lots of love at school and opened the presents this afternoon.  As I say every year, thank you to everyone who sent such thoughtful gifts!  I hope this small glimpse on the blog conveys the joy your generosity brought the birthday princess today!

Sparkly, pink Twinkle Toe shoes from Grandma and Grandpa (just like her cool friends have! :)

A sweet birthday hug from Delia.

A super cute outfit for Ella and a bunch of outfits for Barbie, from Auntie Heather.

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A set of 7 Disney princess dolls also from Grandma and Grandpa.  She.was.thrilled.  Thank you!!

A bag of birdhouses to paint and Fancy Nancy paper dolls from Jonathan, Grace and Benjamin.

Continuing with the Disney theme, Ella's birthday cake this year is a pink Minnie Mouse.  All in all, it's been a very special and very memorable way to celebrate turning 6!

My Digital Photo Album

Last week I made that Photoshop collage of Ella's JCP portraits.  I liked doing it and I liked the way it came out, so my big project lately has been to go back and make collages of all the portraits the girls have had taken over the years (at least the ones I have digital proofs for).  I've been moving these new collages onto the blog and deleting those old slide shows.  Mostly I'm making this list as an archive for myself, but if you're interested in wasting some time online and getting lost in blog world, you can check out the links. :)  
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Ella 6 years
Ella 5 years
Ella 4 years
Ella 3 years
Ella 2 years

Delia 3 years
Delia 2 years
Delia (and Ella) 18 months
Delia 1 year
Delia 9 months
Delia 6  months

I do love them all, but think Delia'a pictures at 9 months and 2 years and Ella's pictures at 3 years and 6 years are my favorites. Which are your favorites?

The Big Birthday Reveal

The time has come to tell the girls, and you, the special plans we made for their birthdays this year-- DISNEYLAND!  We booked a great package months ago and it's been torture to not reveal this secret every other day! :)  We leave very soon and look so forward to experiencing the magic of Disney with the girls at this age!

We had a big exciting reveal planned. The girls were given early birthday presents, wrapped boxes containing mouse ears.  After they had opened them and tried them on, we asked if they'd like to wear their ears on our trip to Disneyland.   Mostly, this announcement was met with confusion and concern over random things.  Ella wondered why there wasn't a dress to go with her Minnie Mouse ears and Delia wanted to be sure we knew that if she went, she was NOT going to ride "that scary ghost ride."  But, after the initial puzzlement wore off and the reality set in, we saw (in this order): excitement, giant smiles, jumping, screaming and even some happy tears from Ella.  While this little video is not quite the grand "Surprise!  We're going to Disneyland!" home movies that you see in the commercials, it still shows a bit of the happiness and surprise.

So, now we're on a short countdown and then off to meet the mouse!  Happy birthday, Ella and Delia!

It's the Thought that Counts

Do you know how hard it is for a gal who loves short hair to wait over a year for her hair to slowly stretch into 10 inches?  Ella knows all about this!  She fell in love with the idea of donating the minimum 10 inches of long hair to Locks of Love, but just couldn't bear the idea of several more summer months of long hair.  So, we chopped at 8 1/2 inches today.  I'm happy that she had this thought to help people and worked so hard to do it.  And we've enjoyed the year of long hair and the fun hairdos that came with it.  But, I also understand the sacrifice it takes and do love her with short hair too.  She's sooo excited to be "the new girl" in class tomorrow and is certain, once again, that her teacher and friends won't recognize her!  

Portrait of a 6 Year Old

Almost 6 year old, that is...

Delia's Open House

Well, like every other preschool thing we've experienced this year, once again we saw Delia finally get her turn to do something she saw Ella do.  Last night it was to show off her preschool classroom at an Open House.  What was cute about Delia was HOW EXCITED she was!  She skipped, hopped and danced the entire walk over, having to be physically restrained at street intersections.  Then she bubbly greeted her teacher like this: "Hi, Miss...Miss...Miss...Miss...I'm too excited to remember your name!"

 

She had to go through each of the books she's been working on this year.

Then we got a tour of her favorites, including her favorite toys and this picture describing more favorites.  I thought I knew my daughter pretty well, but even this was mostly new to me.  Favorite shape, triangle? Who knew!

We got to watch Delia take several rides down the fireman pole, her favorite playground activity.

Then it was time for the cookies and balloons she had been talking about all day.  Poor girl's adrenaline didn't let her get quiet in bed until about 10:30!  Delia's huge excitement and reaction to things is one of the traits I love most in her!

"Let's Grow!"

Delia came home from preschool with this adorable song.  When I asked her to perform it for a video, she was all too happy to oblige!

Things I Love About Camping:

1.  Setting up camp while the girls run around and play things like "Let's make spaghetti (grass) and meatballs (stones) on this pretend stove!"

2.  Watching Dave start the campfire Survivor Style.

3.  Amazing wildlife encounters!  Favorite of this weekend: wild turkeys wandering through our camp.  Not-so-favorite: REAL scorpion in the bathroom!

4.  S'MORES!

5. Bats swooping down at dusk to gobble up mosquitoes.

6.  Nighttime fun: shadow stories presented from inside the tent, reading by the campfire, stargazing.

7.  Tent giggling and sleeping bag snuggling.

8.  Bird song alarm clock.

9.  The hope each new cast of the pole brings.  Watching the giant fish jump, even if they don't bite.

10. My husband wearing my grandpa's flannel shirt.

11.  A good hike.

12.  Exhausted kiddos sleeping in crazy-contorted positions in their car seats on the ride home.

13..  The after-camping shower...best shower in the world!!