This is a story about our family, who is on the Type A, make plans way in advance and overthink things, end of the spectrum doing something totally out of character. It stars a former babysitter, named Kara, who took care of our girls for the 4 years she was in high school. Kara now goes to college in the LA area and works at Disneyland in her spare time. We've stayed in touch and this summer she told me if we were ever interested in Disneyland, she could get us in for free.
The story continues with Dave finding a super rare Sunday where he actually didn't have to preach at either service... a Sunday that happened to fall over a long Veteran's Day weekend! So, two weeks out, we hatched this crazy idea to take some days off school and head down to Disneyland. The concept of just throwing together a big trip like this (one we've made in the past, but planned for a year), felt so foreign and overwhelming, we left it in the hands of the Lord. IF I could get a substitute teacher, IF we could get a dog-sitter, IF the dates we were looking at were not black-out dates for Kara, IF we could find a hotel at the last minute...
All the IFs quickly got resolved, so we took it as God's blessing and off we went to the Happiest Place on Earth! We were happy to reconnect a bit with Kara, who simply scanned her cast member pass and ushered us right into the parks for a couple days! We're so thankful to have done this trip 3 times now with the girls. Each Disney trip is SO special and had its own memorable moments. We went when the kids were 3 and 5, with belief in princesses and magic in their hearts. We went when we shocked them with the surprise of Grandma and Grandpa. And this time we loved taking older kids-- who could make it open to close in the park, who weren't afraid of any rides, who were hilarious and fun to wait in lines with, and who skipped princess visits for ones with Marvel characters! It was THE BEST trip, reminding us in another busy season of life what a gift time together with these favorite people is!!
Delia was excited to ride the big California Adventure roller coaster for the first time, the Incredicoaster. She LOVED it. Ella's not a fan of drops, and this ride had two huge ones, so she sat out and played photographer instead. She snapped this pic right before Dash yells "Ready in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 GOOOOO!" and you blast off!
A favorite ride is always the Toy Story Mania, experiential 4-D video game ride. We rode 3 times and none of us were ever able to beat Dave's impressive score.
We love Cars Land too!
Something new for us to see was the transformation of Pixar Pier. We thought the theme was super well done and enjoyed recognizing lots of special little details from some of our favorite movies. We all love Inside Out best and thought the Emotional Whirlwind ride was fun.
We met Spiderman and Captain America! After a summer soaked in Marvel movies, this was a highlight for the girls. Did you notice the girls' fun mouse ears? I found them in an Etsy shop and managed to get them to us in time for our trip. Spiderman and Cap liked them too. ;)
Though the tickets into the park each day were free and Kara shared lots of other perks (like certificates for certain food items and gift shop discounts), the trip was not totally without expense. But, another amazing blessing was that Dave was just coming off the month of October, which is Pastor Appreciation Month, and had a wad of cash that the wonderful people of our church had been gifting him. He said he'd love to use that to treat us to some special meals we would have not otherwise tried. Our best was our lunch at the famous Lamplight Lounge. Here we ordered fancy lobster nachos, ratatouille, and carne asada sushi rolls. We were delighted in the walls plastered with Pixar quotes and original artwork from the movies. We loved the creative, thematic food and drink names, all inspired by the movies we know so well. We are still talking about this cool meal! And the restaurant sits right on the lagoon, so the views are pretty!
Delia went three for three in her record for getting chosen from the audience to come dance with a character in a little Disney show. This time it was Peter Quill in the "Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Dance Off". A new core memory!
Getting later and getting tired? No worries, we were in the company of energetic teenagers this time! By going in the late fall season, instead of summer, we enjoyed it getting dark sooner and seeing the lights of the park come on more around dinner time.
We entertained ourselves in some of the lines by recreating Disney pictures we knew we had taken in the past! :)
Our first day in California Adventure ended with one of our favorite memories of the whole trip. We were in line to ride a favorite, Radiator Springs Racers, as the park's opening hours wound down. When we hopped off the ride, it was two minutes to closing. The girls came up with the idea to really RUN and see if we could get back in line again before it officially shut down. We ended a long day of walking 15 miles with a major sprint and MADE IT! We were the LAST ones to get on this ride for the day and were rewarded with a car all to ourselves and giddy joy that we pulled off back-to-back rides on this headliner! These little things were the big things that made us just fall in love with our cool and so fun older kids all over again and realize that the magic of Disney grows with you.
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