After we got home on Wednesday night from Disneyland, the kids got a knock on the door and were surprised to see their Grandma & Grandpa Foster with suitcases! They had come for a couple days fun too! The kids were super excited to show them all their favorite things at the parks the next day!
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DAY 6 -
We decided to just show up to the park at official opening time this day. We caught the ART bus and headed to California Adventure first. 1st stop was Hollywood Land.
We did the Monsters Inc ride and then saw these cool paintings on a back wall - the balloons from UP, Buzz Lightyear, and then we ran into Pluto again!
Ava was so excited to take Grandma & Grandpa to Guardians of the Galaxy ride. She was so excited to get to ride it again too. It was so funny to listen to Grandma screaming. My dad loves the free fall type rides so he thought it was awesome. This ride is so fun because you never know if you are going to shoot up or drop down. I swear when you free fall down you don't even touch the sheet. It is such a crazy feeling.
Then we headed to Cars Land so Kasen could go on one of his favorite rides Radiator Springs Racers. We stopped by the waterfall. We are so photogenic. lol
While they all went on the ride, Dallin and I decided to go meet Lightning McQueen in person! Dallin was so excited, he kept jumping up and down in line yelling, "yea yea yea!" But when we got up there and Lightning McQueen actually talked to him and moved he was stone-faced. I guess he was too star struck.
Pixar Pier up next! There is a big lake in front of Pixar Pier and so we were posing in front of it. Apparently there used to be a really cool night show they would do here with lots of fireworks and lights, but it hadn't been going for a bit. However, there were all these pipes and stuff sticking out of the water. It looked like a landmine maze. It reminded us of hiking through the middle of the firework bomb areas for the 4th of July this last summer!
Goofy's Sky School ride was a pretty fun one, but a little jerky for me. The kids loved it though so we stopped there. My dad videoed the whole ride - I'm not sure how! I turned around to take a picture of them at the end. The other guy in the ride sure did a good job of posing for me! lol There were a lot of Coco decorations up for Halloween and the Day of the Dead.
We finally made it to the Incredicoaster for Kinsley! Her favorite and she was so excited to sit next to Grandma on it. We also hit the Toy Story Mania again which everyone loved. Kinsley even got to try a Jack Jack Num Num Cookie today.
We decided to head over to Disneyland and hit some of the rides there too. We of course had to stop and get more Dole Whips. Another cool feature of the MaxPass is that you can order food on your app and have it ready for pickup. The line for the Dole Whips was always so long. It was so nice to open my app, order the ice cream, and then walk straight up to the front of the line and pick them up 30 sec. later. Especially with my kids and my dad - they all want food right when they want it! haha. We had to hit the Pirates of the Caribbean ride today. My cousin told me there was a pirate inside name Manwaring. So we searched all along the queue. We found him not to far down the line except his name was Mainwaring. We counted it as close enough. Ava said, "Leave it to Grandma to find dead people she's related to wherever she goes!"
Next stop was lunch and then Splash Mountain. This is always everyone's favorite. I loved the MaxPass just to be able to download all the great pictures from the rides. They are proof Jed had a good time! Kasen's goal on every water ride was to get as soaked as possible. He and Grandpa got drenched this time!
It was pretty hot this day and everyone's feet were tired so we decided to go on the Disneyland train. It was actually nice to sit for a bit as it went around. At one point on the ride it actually went through this weird tunnel with dinosaurs. It was pretty random, but the kids liked it.
We made some stops and rode it back all the way around to where we started from. Kasen and I found the infamous Club 33 door entrance. It was right in the middle of New Orleans area and you could easily walk right past it. Apparently there is an ultra exclusive club right in Disneyland where members pay like $50,000 a year to belong to and the wait list to get into the club is 15 yrs. No one really knows what the heck goes on in there. I think that usually means nothing good. We bought some churros and while they were cooking we watched the big pilgrim ship sail by. I wonder if this is the ship from Pocahontas???
We hit a few more rides - Thunder Mountain & Star Tours. My parents were troopers and went on all the rides! After Thunder Mountain they were starting to not be as excited as they were in the morning though when we stopped at another ride. lol
We decided to take Grandma on her favorite ride - It's a Small World. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of Grandma and the kids in front of it. I remember riding It's a Small World with my grandma too. Dallin really got into this ride. He was singing along to the song as happy as could be. Afterward we decided to watch the Pixar Parade. Grandma loves parades and luckily she was the only one that my kids were willing to sit and watch a parade for. Turns out they loved the parade. Especially Kasen. Everytime a new float would come around the corner he would turn around and point and yell about how cool it was!
The parade was actually really fun and had great music and dancing and bubbles spraying out everywhere. Kasen and Kinsley literally didn't stop dancing the entire 20 min long parade. I have the funniest videos of them dancing.
All the Pixar characters were in the parade. The floats were really amazing. On the Toy Story float there was a girl dressed up like Jesse and she just did flips over and over on the bar. I was so dizzy just watching her. We had sat up near the start of the parade so after it was done we decided we would head back to the condo. As we were walking towards the park exit we realized we were following the parade so it was very slow going. It was definitely the biggest crowd we'd been in at the park the entire time. Apparently everyone else had the same idea we did.
One thing we will miss about the Disney parks in California are the amazing treats and food. The food really is amazing. The corndogs at the Little Red Wagon kiosk were one of the best things I have ever eaten and I don't even like corndogs. Jed thinks they put drugs in all the food and that is why they taste so good and why they are so expensive. After we got back to the condo we went ordered pizza and headed down for a little swimming before bed. What a great day!
DAY 7 - We decided to go to Universal Studios the next day. Universal was a ways away from where we were staying and with LA traffic it took us over an hr to get there. Everyone makes it seem like everything is just right there all together but it is definitely not! Universal was actually packed which was weird! It was also super hot and after Disney it just seemed a lot more ghetto. It was also tiny compared to Disney so we were a little disappointed. It was still cool to see, but I doubt we'd ever go back there. I remember the Universal park in Orlando being much much bigger. We did still go on some fun rides - Kung Fu Panda, The Mummy, and the Transformers. We were bummed the Jurassic Park ride had just closed down earlier in the week!
We were most excited to see Harry Potter world. The construction was incredible. Ava and Grandma went on the big ride in the castle and the rest went on Flight of the Hippogriff. This ride was super short, still fun, but way too short. There was zero shade at Harry Potter world so we decided to go watch the Animal show. It was pretty cute and talked about how they train animals for movies. After this my parents had to leave to head to the airport to catch their plane home. We were sad to see them go! We were so glad they joined us for a couple of days.
It was really really hot this day - close to if not above 100 degrees. I can't remember now. After Grandma and Grandpa left we took a break and ate lunch in the shade. On our way back in we took some pictures out in front (Jed's specialty picture when no one is looking and calling it good) and on the red carpet. Then we back inside for more fun.
By this time we were dragging our feet a bit because of the heat, crowds, etc. We went on the Minion ride and that area was just loud and carnival like and so we left and decided to go on the studio tour. We had to walk past all the Simpson's rides and attractions. It was so loud and lights were flashing and sirens were going off and it smelled just like the fair. As we were walking by I turned and said to Jed, "This is my definition of hell." He said, "I was literally thinking that exact thing in my head too!" The studio tour was awesome and had changed a lot from what I remember as a kid. There was a really cool part in a tunnel with the Fast and Furious people. It is really interesting to see some of the props from movies, actual sets where movies were shot, and watch the special effects they use to create floods/storms. Plus we got to sit the whole time which was awesome.
At the end there was a big fake Hollywood backdrop. Everyone wanted to pose by it. Jed said he felt like we were turning into Asians with how many pictures we were taking by the Hollywood sign. He was not being mean - Asians literally take more pictures than any other people I've ever met. And when they find a place they want to take a picture at or of, they are not afraid to take 200 pictures posing differently in each one. They were fun to watch. Some of their poses were hilarious! On a different note, we loved the studio tour and would recommend it to anyone going there as a must do.
We made one last loop through Harry Potter world. By now the buildings were casting a little shade and it was much nicer. It was also less crowded.
We went into Hogsmeadestill it was pretty cool! I had tried to talk Kasen into reading the Harry Potter books before we came and he lasted 1 chapter and said it was super boring. After being here though he said he might want to watch the movies. :)
We knew we had to try a butterbeer while in Hogsmeade. It was a very carmal-like cream soda with lots of cream on top as Ava so graciously modeled for us. It was like drinking a Werther's candy.
There was a 15 mintue line to go into Olivander's wand shop and I had to basically force everyone to wait. Luckily we did though and it was pretty cool. Ava actually got chosen to have a wand choose her. The wizard that helped us very graciously presented Ava with her wand made of unicorn hair and something else. She talked up the wand and how special it was and how magical it was that it had chosen Ava and then said, "You can take it home for only $50." Umm yea no thanks, it was really cool until you said that last part. Luckily Ava wasn't upset about not taking it home.
On our drive back to the condo we took a little detour and drove through different parts of LA to get to the LA temple. It is a really pretty temple. There is a huge grassy area in front of it and it sits up on a hill on a very busy road. The view up near the temple looking out was really pretty. We love seeing all the different temples whenever we go places. There are so many unique things about each one. I told the 3 kids they had seen more temples in more places in their lives than I had until I was an adult. They have seen and touched temples in California (LA, San Diego), Utah (SLC, St. George, Ogden), Idaho (IF, Rexburg, Boise, Meridian), Illinois (Chicago, Nauvoo), Michigan (Detroit), and Kentucky (Lousiville.) Maybe more, but that's all we could remember. Pretty cool!
