California Day 5!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday! I was on an amazing youth conference (we went white water rafting...there will be a blog to come!), and didn't get home til late, and I wasn't in a blogging mood, and I wasn't yesterday either.. I'm back though !

We had finally made it to friday! Unfortunately, the week was going by far too fast. We decided to spend most of the day at Disneyland, and hit up all the rides that we wanted before we left. We got there, and went right away to get a fast pass for Splash Mountain (you can't just ride it once!)

After getting that fast pass, we noticed that the projected wait time for pirates of the carribean was only 10 minutes (turned out to be a little longer, but not too bad). Note in this picture that my face is fairly red and sunburned...remember that when you look at the next picture.

So i realize that this is a really unnattractive picture, and pretty much looks like a mug shot, but I had to include it. While we were standing in line for Pirates, I started getting really light headed and naseous feeling...I honestly think it was almost the sickest I ever felt. Luckily, when we got into the airconditioned building right as I thought I might pass out. I started feeling better. But if you look at this picture, my face is completely pale and drained of all the color that was in it..thats how my mom knew i was actually sick :( We figured that I was really affected by the heat, and the fact that i only hate like half a muffin for breakfast might have contributed to feeling so sick..haha.




So here we are standing in line (still) for pirates of the Caribbean! I didn't really get any pictures of anything from this ride, but I really liked it! They added a lot of stuff from the movies, including Jack Sparrow. I love the few drops that you go off of while your on the boat, especially the ones in the pitch dark! I've had this recurring nightmare since I was 4 about this ride, I'm not sure why! I love all the special effects though! I kind of got a headache at the end when there were fake guns giong off right by head!


There is a train that goes all around the park, so we decided to ride it from Frontierland over to Tomorrow land! It was a nice leisurely ride, and we got to see parts of the park that we hadn't yet been too. We passed by "it's a small world", which sadly wasn't open due to renovations, but it looks like they are redoing the whole thing! I definitely enjoyed riding the train because it was slightly less hot!





So after we rode the train to tomorrowland, we bought one of those spray water bottles (definitely would have been nice to have at the beginning!), and then went back to Splash Mountain! I didn't notice this sign during our first time through splash, but I loved the quote when I saw it, so I had to take a picture :-D






Ha ha I love our picture from Splash Mountain! It's even funnier in real life..I think Michael is hilarious :-D Can you tell I knew exactly where the camera was?!













We got totally soaked this time around! I'm not sure why this picture turned out so bright..hmm

Right as we were getting out of Splash, we noticed that there were characters from Winnie the Pooh! Michael and I went to go stand in line to see Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore. I gotta say, Pooh was so creepy looking! If I was a little kid, I would probably have cried. Eeyore definitely had to be my favorite...haha. He hit me in the face with my little brother's autograph. It hurt! Here he was trying to make up for it by hugging and kissing me. That was interesting.

Time for lunch! We went to this cute little cafe, I think it was called the Carnation Cafe, or something like that, and it was yummy! We had read a lot of reviews about Disneyland and that all the food wasn't very good, but I beg to differ! Even though it was real expensive, it was definitely very good! This place had sandwiches and soup. I got this really good chicken sandwich on a croissant with fresh fruit. My parents got this really good baked potato soup! It was a nice place to cool off as well :)

















So definitely one of the highlights of my whole trip was being serenaded by the Dapper Dan's quartet on Disney's main street. We were just watching them singing, and one of the looked at me video recording them, and was like "Hey, do you want to get a picture with us." Of course I said yes! And I was absolutely THRILLED when they said they were going to sing to me! They sang to me "Let me call you sweetheart" which is one of my favorite quartet songs, and I was just about in cloud nine! They had me play a "game", where whenever they stopped singing, I was supposed to fill in the word "you". Boy did I feel silly! It was awesome though :-D




The line for the matterhorn had been pretty long every time we passed by it, so when we saw that the wait was about 15 minutes long, we jumped right in it! Well, my mom and dad did. Me and michael ran over to get fast passes for space mountain, and by the time we got back, it was almost our turn! Unfortunately, the ride got shut down for about 15 minutes due to 'techincal difficulties', but we just waited, and finally we got on! This ride is so cool! It kind of freaked me out that it was completely dark, especially when we were getting pulled up to the top, but it was really fun! The yeti wasn't nearly as scary or intimidating as I seemed to have remembered! he he.


















So I think the most popular ride at Disneyland is Indiana Jones. Last time we were here, I wasn't tall enough to go on it, so my mom and i spent a lot of the day in Mickey's Toon Town, but I'm pleased to say, i was definitely tall enough now! Once again, we used our wonderful fast passes, but we still had to wait about 15 minutes. Not too shabby though, considering the standby line was over 100 minutes! This is definitely one of my very favorite rides of the trip! It's pretty exciting, but bumpy. Not a ride for the faint hearted. At the end of the ride, tragedy struck. Not really, but when it was pitch dark and we went down a hill type thing, I flew forward and somehow hit my nose/mouth on the seat in front of me. It hurt so bad, I was really thinking I might either have a bloody nose, or a broken one! ha ha. None of those two things happened, but it definitely hurt for about 4 days afterwards!



There was this weirdo fortune telling machine on main street that we kept passing by! The manquin person inside was really creepy. Michael got a fortune from her...However, I don't believe it has come true yet!





















So we went back to the hotel to rest for awhile, and to have dinner (I won't be talking about the place we went for dinner. All i can say is...I really don't like when salad and spaghetti are sitting on about an inch of water!). We went back to the park to watch the spectacular fireworks show! It was so cool! The program was narrated by Julie Andrews, and there was a lot of really cool music and special effects! My favorite part was when tinker bell came flying out. It was an actual person, attached to a wire. It was SO cool! I just love fireworks :-D


Our fast pass for Space mountain wasn't until 930 at night, so after the fireworks, me, my dad and michael headed over to get in line (my mom opted out of this one..she'd been a good sport on gone on every ride, but she really didn't want to go on this one!). This is SUCH a neat ride! You had no idea where you were going, and there were stars everywhere! It's a really cool indoor rollercoaster, and it definitely jolts you around. I really wanted to go again, but it didn't work out. I would post the picture of us on the ride, but it really distorted what we looked like, and I most definitely would never put it online for anyone to see!





While we were on space mountain, my mom got in line for Finding Nemo Submarines. So this ride always had an extremely long line. Even at 1030 at night, it was about 60 minutes long. At different points during the day it got up to 2 1/2 hours. I gotta say..It's totally not worth more than a 20 minute wait. I felt so claustrophobic in the submarine, and I almost fell asleep as well! It was pretty much just watching the movie Finding Nemo underwater. Little kids would probably like it, but I really don't think i'll ever wait in line for this ride again! And Diana, the sign that is in the picture here, reminded us of you. Can you guess why?! ha ha

We ended up leaving the park around 1130, and we were exhausted! It was a very fun last full day in California :)

California Day 4!

So by day 4, unfortunately, my dad had got pretty sick! We ended up just sleeping in for awhile, and instead of heading over to the Disney parks for a late start, we decided to go to the beach! I was definitely excited about this because I haven't been to a real beach on the ocean since 1998! After looking at a couple different options for beaches, we decided to head over to Newport Beach!

I didn't actually get many pictures of us from the beach trip..a lot of them are pretty far away so you can barely see us, but I'll post a few :)



Here we are playing in the water. You obviously can't see us, but just pretend! The waves were so much fun to play in :) The water was pretty cold at first, so my mom didn't get in at all, but she sure missed out!









So after being in the water for awhile, and swallowing a little bit too much salt water, we got out our towels and relaxed for awhile. I didnt' realize it til now, but if you look under my left eye, my mascara sure is smeared! I bet I looked pretty silly, ha ha. I guess its not a very good idea to wear make up to the beach! I also came to regret laying on my stomach for about 30 minutes...cuz guess what! The sunscreen on my back didnt' seem to work, and I didn't put any on my legs. It's been the source of all my woe since!



Here my dad is in front of the waves! Aren't they so pretty?? My dad was pretty adventerous out in the waves..he got out pretty far, and at one point he started getting pulled out further and further til he couldn't reach the ground. Scary eh? I guess that the lifeguards scolded him and some others that went out too far. It scared my mom when she couldn't see him for awhile! I'm glad he didn't drown. On the contrary, he didnt' seem to be too sick..Michael thinks he faked being sick just so we could go to the beach :-D



So I got a little bit bored..and decided to write things in the sand. Can you tell I"m excited to head out to BYU?!











I'm not really sure why my dad felt the need to pick up that nasty piece of seaweed...but to each his own right? I'm just glad I wasn't near it. yuck!




Just a picture of Michael playing. We all had lots of fun in the water!
















Like I mentioned earlier, my mom didn't want to get in the water! She missed out, but I guess she had a fun time just watching and reading her book!








The waves got really big after awhile, but made it even more fun! Except for when I got pushed under the water and almost drowned! Okay, maybe I didn't almost drown, but I definitely got more water in my nose and mouth than I had really wanted! ha ha



So we stayed at the beach for about 3 hours, and it was awesome. I'm definitely glad that we were able to go. You know, if California wasn't so hot, far from my family, and didn't make my hair all gross, I would definitely consider living her just cuz its so pretty, and I'd love to live near the beach. My heart will always be in Colorado though :) It's definitely a great place to visit!

After going back to the hotel to relax for a bit, we headed over to Downtown Disney District. This is a new place (well new to me), that has tons of restaurants, food, and entertainment. We had a lot of fun wandering around, hearing music, and browsing the shops.



Do you ever have those day where you feel incredibly short? ha ha. Thats how I felt next to this giant Giraffe made entirely out of legos. We went into this lego shop that had tons of legos, and a lot of really cool lego masterpieces! I was really tempted to see how hard it would be to make this giraffe fall apart, but I figured I might get arrested, or at least kicked out of the park, if i did...not exactly how I would like to finish off my vacation! I couldn't believe how expensive some of the lego kits were. Who would spend 1000 dollars on a box of legos? Crazy people...











Before we went to dinner, it was time to go to the World of Disney store to buy some souveneers. This store was so cool! It's so huge and has so much Disney stuff. I think we were in here for 2 hours (partly because we all kept getting seperated ha ha...its a big store, and also because I couldnt' decide what I wanted!).




While my parents were paying for everything, me and michael went outside to wait...even at 9 o clock at night it was pretty hot, but it was cooling down (anything is cooler than 103 degrees..). I'm sure Michael will not like this picture of him, but of the 5 pictures I took of us while sitting outside, this is the only one I liked of me. But hey..its my blog ;-) There were a lot of strange people outside, but it was fun to see it all! It's crazy how busy everything still is at Disney later in the evening.




For dinner, we settled on a Naples Ristorante Pizzeria in downtown disney. Now, maybe its just me, but doesn't the mascot for this place kind of seem to resemble a member of the KKK...? Even if it wasn't intended, I think its a bit weird to have this guy as the mascot for the restaurant!







We didn't realize how huge the pizza would be until the brought it out! It was pretty yummy though! I love my mom's face in this picture (even though I'm sure she will be questioning me why I put this picture up..haha)




So the final picture of today's blog is of me at dinner! Even though its kind of bright, you can see my sunburnt face...Even when I put sunscreen on, its ineveitable that I'll get sunburned. And my sunburns never turn tan. Lucky me!








Another fun day in California...at this point our week was starting to wind down, and I was sad :( Well at least we had two days left!

California Day Three!

On Wednesday we decided to devote the whole day to California Adventure. I was pretty excited to go there, because its a fairly new park, and from what I've been told, really cool! And boy, that sure is true! It was really nice because it wasn't crowded at all (unlike Disneyland), and the longest we had to wait in line was about 10 minutes. So where to begin...

As to stick with tradition of the last two posts, here's a picture of me and michael, but since you're probably getting bored of just the typical big cheesy smile pictures, I'll post a little bit different of one (You won't see most of the pictures I took, but half of them feature me making different faces at the camera...welcome to my life!) :-D We're on the tram again, ready for another exciting day in the happiest place on earth!

When we first got into Cali Adventure, we went over to get a fast pass for Soaring Over California, which Cindy and AJ just raved about! We also got a fast pass for Grizzly River Run, because it is disconnected from the fast pass system (thanks Ridemax for the tip!). Since we had a little bit of time before we could use those fast passes, we headed over to an area that seemed to have a lot of fun looking rides!

The first ride we decided to go on was something called the Orange Stinger...or maybe it was stringer. Anyways, you just sit in these seats and fly around..seems harmless enough right? Oh my goodness, my dad sure was smart when he opted out of this one! I don't normally get sick on rides, but after this one, I was so dizzy and felt like I was going to puke! It definitely wasn't the nice and easy ride we were expecting!






After the orange ride, we spotted a little rollercoaster, and since the wait was only 10 minutes (if you can't tell, we don't ride rides with long waits!), we decided to go on it! It was called Mullholland Madness...It was full of twists and turns! But it was still more calm then the horrible orange ride! It was kind of funny cuz my dad's hat (which gave us tons of trouble on this trip...more on that later!) flew off his head, and I caught it! Its similar to what happened last summer at elitches, when AJ's hat flew off while we were on a crazy rollercoaster, and it hit Diana! What are the chances of that happening?

Well, around this time, we had about 15 minutes left til we went to get in line for a performance of Aladdin, so we browsed some of the shops. We found this cute little sunglass shop, and lets be honest, who can resist something like that! okay..maybe the fact that it was airconditioned also drew us in :) Anyways, I decided to try on tons of different sunglasses, and you guessed it, took pictures of myself with them! Of course we didn't buy any cuz they were pretty expensive, and I'm sure the lady in the shop was pretty happy when we left...even though I don't understand why! Who wouldn't want to watch someone trying on millions of sunglasses and taking self portraits?!




We were just about to find our way to Aladdin, when we spotted everyones favorite mouse! The line to see him was short, so we hopped right in! I just love seeing all the Disney characters! They are so much fun and full of energy. This Mickey kissed me on the hand...he was totally in love with me ;-) I think its fun how at california adventure, all the disney characters like mickey and donald, are dressed up in vacationing clothes!




This is the entrance to Hollywood Pictures backlot..this place is so cool! It's set up to look a lot like Hollywood, and has all types of things in it from smoothie shops to huge theatres were amazing performances are put on! I wish we could have spent more time exploring in here!





So I mentioned a few times earlier about how we were going to go see Aladdin...Well we had several people tell us that we absolutely had to go see a 45 minute performance of Aladdin that shows a few times a day in California Adventure..I have to say, i COMPLETELY agree. It was absolutely amazing. The actors were spectacular, and the music was equally amazing. The BEST part of the whole show was the Genie...he was HILARIOUS (yes, I feel the need to captilize random words to emphasize their importance). He kept saying all these funny jokes pertaining to current affairs throughout the world...it was a hoot. It was definitely a broadway quality perfomance..not to mention the smokin hot guy playing Aladdin ;-) I took a couple of videos during the performance...so Enjoy! In the second video, the flying carpet kept disappearing because it was pitch dark...I wasn't just being a bad camera person!

After leaving the nice, air conditioned theatre that Aladdin was in, we were disappointed to find that a sudden cloud cover hadn't appeared, and yep, it was still over 100 degrees outside. Luckily, it was time for Grizzly River Run! This ride was like a mini white water rafting trip! Which might be good practice for me since I'll be going white water rafting this Saturday for youth conference (you can definitely expect a blog about that, be assured!). This was SUCH a nice refreshing ride! We had this nice couple on our boat that gave us some suggestions for rides to go on at both parks, so it was fun! The water was very cold, which definitely felt good :-D Don't go on this ride if your afraid of getting your hair messed up or your clothing soaked!

Our fast pass for soarin over california was right after grizzly, so we went right on over! Have i mentioned how much i love fast passes? Something about passing all the poor people who have been waiting in line for an hour, and going straight to the front..just makes me feel so powerful! haha just kidding. It was nice not to have to wait in the hot sun outside! This is definitely one of my all time favorite rides in California Adventure! Even the "safety video" at the beginning was really entertaining...even if it was extremely corny ;-) It's amazing the rides that they are able to make nowadays..I really felt like we were "soaring over california". I think my favorite part was when they released different smells like trees and oranges! It made the experience even more real. Me and my dad both kind of got a headache after this ride, but hey, it was a sacrifice i was willing to make!

As we were walking over to get in line for Hollywood Tower or Terror, we spotted an aread dedicated to the movie Cars. We didn't end up going into the builiding that probably had cool things in it, but there were these gas tanks set up outside. So...after realizing that it said gas was .05 a gallon, I couldn't resist taking a picture of how appalled i was. Can you even imagine gas being that price?! My face looks really weirdly shaped in this picture though!

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. That is pretty much all I can say to describe Hollywood Tower of Terror. It is by far my favorite ride in California Adventure. The whole building was decorated with memorabilia from the Twilight Zone series! It was pretty spooky. I'm not going to reveal any of the exciting parts of this ride, just so you all can experience yourself, but I will say its pretty intense. Definitely didn't even have time to think about what was going on ;-)







This is just a picture of the tower..sweet isn't it? I think its pretty intense how real it looks, and you definitely your in for an experience like no other before you enter it!

One of my favorite things on rides is when they take your picture! Now, for some reason I'm the only one screaming...I just dont' understand this! I mean, we were close to our death, and everyone else seems to be fairly calm, including the rest of my family! I just dont' understand this..anyone care to explain (And no, don't tell me that the ride wasn't worthy of such intense screaming, because trust me, it was!).

So as our day was beginning to wind down, we settled on going on a ride featuring Monsters Inc! It was just a nice, leisurely ride, basically replaying the whole Monsters Inc movie! It may not have been full of thrills and excitement like some of the other rides of the day, but it was really cute :-)





So as we were making our way towards the exit of the park, we spotted something called "drawn to the magic"...and boy, were we drawn in! haha. It was a musical/painting performance, and guess what! When they asked for a volunteer, they picked Michael! And because he was one of the volunteers, he got this neat picture the guy drew of woody. It was awesome cuz at the end, three disney characters came out at the end (Woody, Cinderella, and Mickey Mouse), and everyone got to meet them afterwards. I really enjoyed this performance, especially cuz it was all done with music and singing!

So to end our day, we went to watch the Disneyland parade that goes on every day. The floats were amazing! There was a lot of singing and dancing, and I just loved watching it, even though I was sitting on the hot pavement and it was just burning my rear end off but I definitely enjoyed it. Disney definitely ceases to amaze me :)


















So yeah, this day was definitely awesome! We went to IHOP for dinner, and they still uphold the tradition of being the slowest restaurant EVER, but it was pretty decent. I think we went swimming afterwards, but honestly, I don't remember! I was exhasted!
until next time!