Disney California Adventure

No trip to Southern California is complete without a visit to Disneyland.  The last time our kids came to Disneyland was about eight years ago.  As we walked through the gates I couldn't help but think how big they are now!  Seriously?  

We've never been to California Adventure before, so that's where we decided to spend our day.  I knew next to nothing about this park or the rides, so we spent the whole day exploring. We would step in line for a ride and the kids would ask what kind of ride it was.  I don't know, I'll guess we'll figure it out!  We arrived bright and early to avoid as many crowds as possible, and it made a huge difference. We walked almost immediately onto the Incredicoaster.  What a fun ride!  We didn't know it was one that would shoot you forward at the start and we were all so surprised we spent the whole ride laughing.

McKenzie came prepared with her Minnie ears.  While Jeremy made a good attempt at making them look stylish, McKenzie definitely has the advantage there.

Toy Story Mania was another ride that we were able to basically walk on.  We rode Toy Story Mania at Disneyworld so I kind of knew what to expect here. We had some sharp shooters who were great at these games.

The musical swings were an unexpected treat.  I didn't know the kids were looking forward to this ride, and their smiles were plastered over their faces the whole ride.  I even heard a couple, "Yahoo!"s from Daxton.

One of the most iconic rides at California Adventure is the Mickey ferris wheel.  Unlike normal ferris wheels, some of the cars have tracks that let them swing around unexpectedly during the ride.  We absolutely chose one of those.  The views from up top were beautiful.  What we were not anticipating was how cold it was going to be up there!  We were freezing.  Jeremy had one extra light jacket in the backpack that McKenzie claimed, but our other spare jackets were back at the car.  We just had to tough it out and hoped it warmed up as the day went on.  (It never did).

Pixar Pier

San Fransokyo!  It was fun to visit these lands that aren't part of the traditional Disneyland experience. 

 While in San Fransokyo we were able to meet Baymax.  He was just as adorable as we'd hoped he'd be.

It was weird to step away from that world directly into the world of Radiator Springs.  The rock work in the world was absolutely phenomenal! It felt like we were in Southern Utah surrounded by red rocks.  

Downtown Radiator Springs

I just wanted to walk into the Luigi's Casa Della Tires to see how they designed the set.  We didn't know we entered the queue for Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters.  Judging by the other kids in line, we were definitely above the recommended age limit here.  Once again, we had no idea what kind of ride it was.  As the ride came into view we could see that we all sat in a car, then all of the cars would do a choreographed dance to Italian music.  We thought about just bailing because it didn't seem thrilling enough, but I'm so glad we didn't!  We all climbed in and heard, "Mambo Italiano" start to play.  It was ridiculously fun!  We all danced in sync with the cars and were laughing so hard by the time we were done.  What an awesome surprise.

Cuddling at the Cozy Cone

Next stop was the Avenger's campus.  The boys were really looking forward to these rides.  Webslingers was also surprisingly fun.  Similar to Toy Story Mania, you get to participate in your car.  We had to save the campus by slinging our own webs at the attacking electronic spiders.  Who knew that we really wanted to channel our inner Spider-Man and sling out webs just like him?

We were starting to wear down and needed a snack break.  We had packed an entire backpack worth of food expecting it to get us through most of the day.  You know?  Big kids eat just as many snacks as little kids.  We needed to supplement with churros and cookies.

As we were relaxing who walked up?  Groot!  While we didn't make character hunting a priority, I loved it when we were able to get quick shots like this.  Groot was so tall.

Once our tummies and spirits were higher, we hoped in line for Guardians of the Galaxy.  The Tower of Terror has been renovated across all the parks and I think they did a fabulous job.  We managed to all line up right up front so that we could get a great family picture.  Cambrie was sitting next to me, and even though I act tough, the act of falling elicits non-stop screams.  She was giggling at my screaming.  The guy next to me was also laughing, because every time I'd reach for a safety handle I'd accidently grab his leg.  But I'd like you to note the fact that Daxton's eyes are wide open and he is having a blast!  He's grown up a lot since our last visit.

We now had a decision to make, we had used all of our immediate Lightning Lane passes so we were going to have to start waiting in lines.  We had heard that Radiator Springs Racers was worth waiting for, and even though we balked at the 120 min wait, we decided there was no way it would actually take that long and what were we doing anyway?  Jeremy grabbed some swarma, and we played Disney Heads-Up while we waited.  Switchback after switchback until we finally reached the front of the line exactly two hours later.  We climbed into a car and took a journey through Monument Valley and met the characters from cars.  The end of the ride was a race around the bluff against another car just like Lightning McQueen and Doc Hudson.  Even though we had no control over the speed of our car, we really got into it.  

After such a long wait, the kids thought they deserved a treat so we headed back to Pixar Pier for some of Jack Jack's cookies.  So yummy!

Playing with the filters on the Disney app

We managed to get in more rides on Guardians of the Galaxy, Goofy's Flight School, Monster's Inc., and Mickey's Philharmonic.  By now we were absolutely starving. We made our way back to Flo's V8 Cafe for some hamburgers and fries.  

We had tickets to the World of Color show that night, and as we walked back towards Pixar Pier we ran into a couple more favorite Avengers.  Loki!  McKenzie was really excited to meet him because she thinks he's the hottest Avenger.

Although, she may have blushed when she met Thor too.

These characters were amazing.  Captain America sounded just like Chris Evans  and the boys didn't mind taking another picture with him.

The pier at night was so beautiful.

We had really considered cutting our day short because we were so tired, hungry, and cold.  But I didn't want to miss out on the show so the crew humored me and we stuck around.  By some miracle we were able to line up right at the front of the crowd to watch the show.  Clips from movies were played on screens of water and music played synchronized with the fountains.

We started getting a little spray from the water, which wasn't surprising.  But because it was so cold we had purposely avoided any of the wet rides this visit, much to Kelton's chagrin.  But as the show went on we kept getting wetter, and wetter.  I began to wonder, not for the first time, if this was a good idea.  The during the finale a huge spray of water directly hit the crowd.  We were absolutely and completely soaked.  I couldn't believe it.  As we made our way back to the parking garage multiple people asked us why we went on Tiana's Bayou or Grizzly Run at the end of the night.  We didn't.  But now we were paying for our prime seats during the show.  Back at the car we stripped off as many wet layers as we could for the drive home and couldn't wait to warm up in bed.

It was such a fabulous day and I'm so glad I could see so many smiles on my kids' faces.  But we decided that the next day we deserved a day of doing absolutely nothing.

La Jolla

The kids were so excited to spend their time in California at the beach.  I think they were all just craving sunshine.  Our flight landed early enough that we had some time to kill before checking into our condo.  Since La Jolla was on route, we stopped there first.  I've never been there, but have heard that the tide pools are pretty cool to explore.  We arrived close to low tide so there was plenty to explore.  

 

I particularly liked the anemones that clung to the walls of each pool.  As the water would rise and fall they would open and close.  When closed up tight they looked like simple rock clusters, but that was their nice protective layer they'd worked on.  

Once the tidal pools lost their appeal, the boys started tempting fate by running across low areas between the waves.  Sometimes they got lucky and cleared out in time, sometimes they didn't.  Pretty quickly the boys were soaked.  It was a rough introduction that California beaches in the spring are not necessarily warm. They were pretty chilled before we left.  While this might not have been the kind of beach the kids were expecting, I like mixing it up and it was great.