Disneyland - Days 2 & 4

The girls waiting for the shuttle to take us to the parks. The whole outfit frenzy started when I couldn't find a single short-sleeved Halloween shirt anywhere. I made these shirts and added the ruffle to some plain jean skirts:

On our second day we spent the day at California Adventure. I was so bummed on this trip that they have taken out the huge CALIFORNIA letters in front of the park. We usually take a picture with the F and I was so excited to have our entire family in the picture this year. I hope they bring them back! There is a lot of construction happening at the park right now so that was a bit of a bummer but still fun. We hit a few of our favorite rides right away – Soaring over CA and Grizzly River run (where Makenna ended up SOAKED). We headed over to the Aladdin show, which we had never seen and loved. They handle the animal characters very similarly to the Lion King Broadway show so it was awesome (think life sized Elephants and camels). We also hit Turtle talk with Crush which is always one of our favorite activities.

Allen and Carter were so excited to ride Tower of Terror and they persuaded me to go on it this year. I hate those kinds of rides and TOT was no exception. FREAKY! But my boys love it and rode it over and over. Makenna and I rode once and that was plenty for both of us!

C&M before Tower of Terror:

Bug's Life Bumper cars:

Waiting in line for the Toy Story Mania ride Emery fell asleep. That was the longest line we stood in all week so we only rode it once. Kind of a bummer because we love that ride!

We finished off the day by watching the new World of Color light show which was amazing. On our way to our seats a cast member told us a secret spot to watch it so we could avoid the crowds. It was awesome where we watched it from!


Day 4

Thursday was our magical morning so we took the opportunity to get a few more pictures at Disneyland. My friend owns an embroidery business and made our shirts for us. You can’t see in the picture but it says Frost 2011 underneath the Mickey head in the Disney font. Everyone loved our shirts and though Allen fought the idea at first he ended up loving our matching shirts (and even has some new ideas for next time!)

We had a little camera scare for a few minutes on this morning and I could not get my camera into focus. I totally panicked but changed some of my settings and it worked great after that. It freaked me out though because we hadn’t gotten some of the shots I wanted yet.

After spending the morning riding a few rides and stocking up on Fast Passes for the big kids to use later that night, we headed back over to California Adventure. The parks were dead because the forecast was for another HOT day but it ended up being very pleasant. We were able to ride Ariel’s Undersea Adventure 5 times back-to-back. It was Addison’s favorite ride and she has begged to ride it every day since we have been home. She was the BEST age to take to Disney this time because everything was so magical for her. This is a brand new ride and she still loves Ariel so it was perfect timing.


We hit our other favorites in the park – Soaring over California, Tower of Terror (for Allen and Carter 3 times!), Bugs Life (the splash pads were a life saver on this trip!), Grizzly River Run, the Ferris Wheel and tons more. We were so sad that California Screaming was closed for the entire week we were there. Makenna is finally tall enough to ride it and she was so sad she couldn’t. We also played in the Wilderness Lodge park for a long time. We’ve never done it before and the kids had so much fun. They have a zip line, rock wall, slides and a treetop rope climb. It was one of our favorite things on this trip.

Zip Line
How Addison felt about not being big enough to go on the rock wall or zip line:
In fact, the only tears on this trip were due to the fact that Addison was still too short for a few of the rides. She is BRAVE and wants to do everything C & M do!

Emery was beat by the end of the day. She was such a trooper on this trip and napped in her stroller when she could and did great with very limited sleep. This trip made me realize how hard it is to travel with a baby and it helped me get over my baby hunger a little bit. This is at the end of the day. She had been munching on a bagel and fell asleep with it in her hand. Poor baby!At the end of the day I took Emery and Addison home to go to bed and start packing up. Allen took the big kids back over to Disneyland to ride a few more big rides before heading home. The park was open until 11:00 p.m. but they were beat and gave away a few of their fast passes and were back at the hotel by 10:00.

We had a fantastic trip and made some really great memories. We had a great balance of doing a TON but also slowing down to enjoy a few things off the beaten path. We LOVE you Disneyland! Until next time.....