Adventures in So Cal, Part 2--And Maren's Birthday

On Tuesday of our vacation, we got up bright and early to go to Disney's California Adventure.  Arie and Isabel live 15 minutes from Disneyland, so that was nice.  We started out by heading straight to Cars Land.  We were so impressed!  It looks exactly like the movie.  It was so much fun to see!

 Waiting in line for our favorite ride: the cars one where you are racing (I obviously don't know the name of it!)

Just my family sitting in some stinky fish.

 Waiting for the Toy Story ride, sporting some awesome glasses.

 How cute is that?  I love spontaneous love between my children!

 On our other favorite ride: the raft one where you float and get wet (seriously, what are the names of these rides?  I need my kids here to tell me.  Grizzly Rapids, maybe?)

We met up with Danielle's family for another ride on the Car's ride.

Awesome scenery all around.  Everything in California Adventure was done so well.

 Dustin's cousin, Carolyn (she's my favorite, of course) and her little baby, met up with us in the afternoon.  She lives nearby and it was fun to see her for a little bit.

 Eating Mickey Mouse.

 On the Bug's Life Bumper Cars.  These things were so incredibly slow, it was comical.  I'm sure Dustin is trying to stop me from hitting in to him right now, with his bare hands.

 More Bug's Life Land.

 The kids, dancing under the Neon in Car's Land.

 Really amazing fireworks show.

This is how I found Ryan, waiting for the rest of us to buy a souvenir, at midnight.  Poor kid.

The next day, Disneyland was on the agenda.  It was also Maren's birthday, and she was very happy to celebrate her birthday at Disneyland.  The workers were very nice to her.  They gave her a badge to wear that said it was her birthday, and she got a lot of, "Happy Birthday Princess" from everyone. 

 Pretty tough, getting ready for the Star Wars ride.

 It is Disneyland's 60th anniversary this year, so everything was decorated with diamonds, for their Diamond Celebration.

This poor girl got sunscreen in her eyes, right at the beginning, and they hurt her for about half of the day.

 Not strong enough.

 Even on her birthday, she isn't strong enough.

 We just kept seeing Mickey, everywhere we looked!

 The only ride that Grant couldn't go on was the Indiana Jones ride.  He missed being tall enough by 1/2 inch!  He was very sad about this.  We explored Tarzan's tree while we waited for the others.

Heading down to Indiana Jones.

 We found Arie and Isabel for long enough to go with them on Pirates of the Caribbean and the haunted ride thing.

 More of Tarzan's Tree.

 The Jungle Cruise was fun, although the crocodile scared Grant.

 Waiting in line.

 The Teacups.  I did not get sick!  Dustin may have felt a little queasy afterward...

 Thunder Mountain Railroad was one of our favorites.  We went on it many times.

We really loved Disneyland and California Adventure.  We pushed our kids hard, so that we could go on every ride that we wanted, and they did wonderfully!  We woke them up early, got to bed very late, and ran all day, but we knew we would only have the one day in each park, and we didn't want them to miss anything.  That was one benefit of waiting to take them until they were all a little older.  And after Disneyland, we let them sleep in the next morning, and they slept a long time!

Maren is a fun part of our family!  She is loving, helpful, a hard worker and gives great hugs.  She is so good with children, and is going to make a great babysitter in a couple of years.  She does a great job of playing with all the younger cousins and neighbors and will often get them organized and playing fun games together.  She is a great student, loves to read and do math, wants to play the flute, and has a beautiful singing voice.  She loves to cook and regularly wants to do a family Cupcake War.  Her favorite food is Honey Lime Enchiladas, and she told me that when she is older, she will make them every day to eat.  And, she really might do that.  We love our Mimi!